


Exactly What It Looks Like

by almaasi



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Crack, Deep Space Memes, Ensemble Cast, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Date, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Holding Hands, Illustrated, Lighthearted, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Practically Everyone, Public Display of Affection, Romance, everyone ships it, set in late season 5 maybe? or afterwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almaasi/pseuds/almaasi
Summary: Quark has a competition going to see who can snag the most romantic-looking picture of Garak and Bashir together. It’s so popular that practically everyone on DS9 is getting in on the action. Bashir finds out, and convinces Garak to help him take the winning photo – cue fake-relationship flirtation to get in the mood, a late-night tailor-shop rendezvous to pick the right outfits, then the staging of a seductive, intimate moment in a quiet hallway... only to wonder if the relationship they’re portraying in their picture is exactly what they want in reality. Or even what they already have.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 75
Kudos: 453
Collections: Holiday Survival Kit





	1. Practically Everyone

**Author's Note:**

> Beta’d by [Sarah](https://perphesone.tumblr.com/), [Libby](https://cersei-the-truth-bombardier.tumblr.com/) – and a special thanks go to my sister [Amara](https://sweetdreamspootypie.tumblr.com/), who, after faithfully reading and editing _dozens_ of my fics over the years and nobody else’s, stayed up until 1am last night reading this, freaked out when her phone died at a pivotal moment in the story, and said – and I quote – “Very in character lol / I'm starting to see the enjoyment of fanfic.” If that’s not a rave review, I don’t know what is.

“ _QUARK_.”

Quark raised one hand and one dishcloth in surrender. “Whaa-a-aaat?” he sang innocently.

“That’s the sixth person you’ve charged,” Odo said, jerking his head towards the Bajoran on his way out, “for something _other_ than a drink or the use of a holosuite.”

Quark hummed and went back to wiping shot glasses. “What can I say, Odo, maybe I’ve mastered the art of profit. Charging people for absolutely nothing.”

“Aha-ha-ha,” Odo laughed flatly, leaning over the bar and pulling Quark down by his collar. “I’m _sure_.”

Quark sighed. “Look, if you must know, there’s a competition running.”

Odo let Quark ping back, smiling when the Ferengi nearly toppled over. “What _sort_ of competition?”

Quark smiled, emptied his hands, and leaned with confidence on the bar, hands propping him up. “You sure you’re ready for this? Might offend those delicate sensibilities of yours...”

“Just tell me, Quark.”

“Oh, trust me, Odo, it’s easier if I show you.”

Quark bent down behind the bar, and lifted up a four-foot padd, the screen scattered with dozens of images, which jumped around, leapfrogging over each other every few seconds. Odo harrumphed in surprise as he noted they were all photos of Mr. Garak with Dr. Bashir, either standing together, dining at the Replimat, or walking side-by-side down the Promenade.

“I’m charging people a small entrance fee for the privilege of entering the competition,” Quark explained. “At the end of the month, whoever submitted the most romantic-looking picture of the doctor and the tailor gets a free holosuite dinner-date – real food, not replicated.”

Odo folded his arms, watching Quark put the board away again. “I’m sure I don’t need to list how many _ways_ that violates the privacy of the station doctor _and_ his Cardassian friend.”

“Oh, relax,” Quark waved. “I have their... permission.”

Odo tutted. “Oh, _do_ you.”

Quark gave a firm, “Yes I do, Odo,” while mixing a drink.

Odo sneered at him.

“Besides,” Quark said, “it’s all in good fun. The entry rules clearly state that the pictures have to be taken in public areas. And _you_ know, and _I_ know, and _everyone_ knows that Bashir and Garak aren’t _actually_ a couple. They’re well-known figures around here! We’re all familiar with the sight of them dining together. They have good chemistry, and,” Quark wobbled his head side-to-side, “decent senses of humour. It’s just something silly to take all our minds off the Dominion.”

Odo hummed, almost convinced to let this atrocity continue. “Dare I ask what prompted you to offer such a _generous_ prize?”

Quark pff’d. “Have you _seen_ how many people are entering this thing? One holosuite dinner hardly even _tickles_ my profits, let alone approaches denting them. Barely a week since I opened for entries, and practically half the station’s signed up. I tell you, having a camera in the back of every padd? Genius. Everyone’s an artist at heart, Odo. Even you.”

“Hah!”

“I’m telling you, you could get the best picture. Access to all the security footage? You could get a view of them nobody’s ever seen.”

Odo cackled. “I kneewwww you were up to something more devious than a competition. What do you expect me to do, exactly, share my security footage with you?”

“Oh, please.” Quark offered a regular-sized padd, with a space for a thumbprint at the bottom of a signup form. “One strip of latinum from _you_ and I’ll be the happiest Ferengi in the Quadrant.”

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Jadzia Dax hopped down into the pit at the side of Ops, beaming, “And the photos are ranked – there’s a growing collection accessible on Quark’s network channel. You can vote them up and down. There’s some really good ones on there already.”

Kira sighed and turned away, punching buttons. “I can’t believe you’re actually getting _into_ this.”

“What, a Trill can’t have a little fun? I’ve had enough of fabricated romances in the holosuite. I want a _real_ game of hearts.”

Kira threw back her head and huffed. “I really can’t believe you. This is disgusting, you realise that, right?” She climbed the ladder and paced back to her main monitor, padd in hand.

Jadzia trotted after her, grinning. “Oh, come on,” she said. “I know it’s Quark, but... he does seem to be being at least _slightly_ considerate. Odo hasn’t shut it down, so it _must_ be legal. All the pictures have to be taken in public, for one thing, so it’s not like anyone’s going to catch them in the middle of a lovemaking session.”

“ _Lovemaking_ seh—” Kira looked at Jadzia in horror. “Bashir and _Garak_? Are you crazy? That would never happen. Bashir isn’t— At least—” Kira cocked her head, annoyed, then baffled. “And Garak— Well, Garak... probably, but— That’s not the _point_ —”

Jadzia’s eyes twinkled. “You in or out?”

Kira spluttered. “Out! Obviously!”

“I’m not in it to _win_ ,” Jadzia purred, lounging against a monitor. “But that said... Tell you what, Nerys, if my entry ranks higher than yours by the end of the month I’ll take you somewhere nice in the holosuites. Your choice.”

Captain Sisko overheard as he was striding past, and he stopped. “Not _this_ again. I told Jake that spying on the private life of my Chief Medical Officer was no laughing matter, but—” Sisko threw his hands up. “No talking him out of it. Him and Nog have been giggling over this competition for days.”

Jadzia’s grin grew two teeth wider. “ _Jake’s_ entered? Oh, Benjamin.”

Sisko scowled and folded his arms. “I’m in half a mind to enter myself, if only to see what kind of excrement Quark’s been cooking up right under my nose. Then again... from what I saw over Nog’s shoulder, people have been fairly... _creative_. Perhaps it is good for morale.”

Jadzia chuckled. “There’s more great art added by the hour. Did you see the one where Bashir has bird wings and Garak has scaly bat wings? Or the one with a bathtub? Ooh-ooh, or the one where they’re both women? That’s the best one.”

Kira huffed, as Sisko raised his eyebrows. “I did not,” Sisko said.

“Oh, _you’ll_ like them,” Jadzia smiled, glancing at Kira. She then glanced at Sisko. “You’ll want to burn your eyes out.”

“How very reassuring.”

“They’re not winning entries, though, obviously,” Jadzia said hastily, in case anyone thought they would be. “If you want to win you can only submit an unedited image, not a drawing, no holoimages, no people in costumes, and so on. But hey,” she smirked, “if this _raises morale_ , I don’t think anyone’s complaining about some joke entries.”

Sisko hummed thoughtfully, turning away and heading for his office.

Jadzia leaned closer to Kira and murmured, “But I’m telling you, if Garak saw some of the edited ones? I don’t think it’s just his _morale_ that would be raised.”

Kira was perplexed – then her eyes lit up, she gasped, yelped, and smacked Jadzia with her padd. They both went back a few steps, laughing and shrieking until Kira agreed, _fine_ , she’d _think_ about entering, if it meant she got to see what Bashir looked like as a woman.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Jake kicked Nog’s shoe, and his heel bumped against the Promenade’s balcony.

“ _What_ ,” Nog demanded, as Jake patted his arm frantically.

“Look!” Jake jabbed towards the corner of the Replimat, where Dr. Bashir and Garak were mid-way through their lunch. “They’re doing their book swap!”

Nog huffed and rummaged for his Starfleet-issue padd, handing it to Jake, who found the camera setting, steadied his wrists against the lowest balcony barrier, and aimed the lens at the Replimat.

Jake grinned and chuckled as he took five pictures, zoomed in so close that he could see the shine of Garak’s manicured fingernails, and the three thin black hairs on the back of Bashir’s left wrist. He zoomed out and took a few more.

“I don’t get it,” Nog uttered, arms folded, kicking his feet. “Why did we have to wait for the data rods to come out?”

“Because,” Jake said slyly, still grinning as he handed back the padd, “Garak is _giving Bashir his rod._ ” He wheezed with laughter, cackling with a hand on his stomach.

Nog stared blankly. “Yes?”

Jake snorted. “You don’t get it? Really? Did they ban dirty jokes at the Academy, or what?”

Nog started to get up. “Explain it to me.”

Jake sighed, but smiled, and ambled along next to his much-shorter Ferengi friend as they headed back to their quarters. He explained as they went: the rod was a metaphor for something _else_.

“Ohhhh,” Nog said, once he understood. He started to grin, showing his sharp teeth. “Hehehehehehehe.”

Jake laughed again, dipping his head in a nod. “ _Now_ you get it.”

They ambled to a halt and lounged against another of the barriers, watching people pass by on the Promenade below. Jake borrowed the padd again and went through the new images ponderously, leaning over to show Nog. “How about this one? Bashir’s smiling, that’s cute. We could crop it and add a caption.”

Quark hissed and waved his hand down madly, and Jake started to frown – only to hear the whisper of fabric as someone came to stand beside him.

“Hi, you two!” came a warm voice.

“Mrs. O’Brien!” Jake grinned, hiding the padd behind his back.

“It’s been so long,” their former teacher cooed, opening her arms and taking Nog into a brief hug. “How’s the Academy treating you, Nog?”

“It’s great, Mrs. O’Brien,” Nog beamed.

“And what is it you’re working on now?” Mrs. O’Brien asked, gesturing to the half-hidden padd. She peered at it curiously, and her expression cleared as she saw the image on the screen. “Do you know, this is the third time today I’ve come across people taking photos of Julian? What are you all up to?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mrs. O’Brien,” Nog said breathily, with his toothiest smile. “Nothing at all!”

Mrs. O’Brien gave a wry smirk. “Now I _know_ that whenever you say that it means the exact opposite. Tell you what, I’ll ask Dr. Bashir later if—”

“It’s just a competition!” Jake blurted, smiling so he didn’t grimace. “Quark’s running it. You take photos of the doctor and Garak together and the one that looks the most, ahh... romantic? – wins. Entries close at the end of the month. We’re not supposed to talk to them about it, I heard they’re the ones who get final say on who wins.”

“Aaaaii-I-I-I heard that too,” Nog said. “But it was more just Uncle Quark saying ‘if you ruin this you’ll owe me _bigtime_ ’.” He glanced nervously at Jake. “But that was the gist of it.”

Mrs. O’Brien nodded slowly. “Okaaay... That sounds... interesting. May I see what you got?”

Jake and Nog shared a glance, but Jake figured it wasn’t dirty without the caption, so handed over the padd.

Mrs. O’Brien looked, tucking her black hair behind one ear. “Romantic?” she mused. “Hm, okay. I suppose I can see it. The doctor _is_ very fond of Garak, isn’t he?”

“ _So_ fond,” Jake said with a flash of a smile.

“Thanks for letting me peek, Jake.” Mrs. O’Brien handed back the padd. “Are you really sure Garak and Dr. Bashir agreed to this?”

Nog assured her, “Uncle Quark wouldn’t be doing the competition unless he had permission. My father even said Captain Sisko _ordered_ Uncle Quark to keep it running.”

Mrs. O’Brien seemed impressed. “Very important competition, then. You know... actually...” She shrugged with her bottom lip, a dazed look wandering across her eyes. “Now I think of it, I might just have some old photos of them together that could work.”

She smiled, patted Jake on the shoulder, then turned to leave. “Nice seeing you both. And good luck with the competition!”

As she left, Jake and Nog shared a bewildered, relieved, and kind of giddy look.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


“Evening, honey,” Miles uttered as he came in, trudging to the couch and leaning down to give Keiko a kiss. “Mwah. How was your day?”

Keiko was distracted for a few more moments, still swiping through something on her padd screen. “Hm? Oh. Fine. Good, actually! The kids were very well-behaved. Miles, did you know about this competition?”

Miles was halfway out of his uniform, gruff-voiced as he looked back and asked, “What competition?”

“The photography thing Quark’s running,” Keiko said airily. “Making Garak and Julian look like they’re a romantic couple.”

Miles spluttered, nearly ripping the t-shirt he was bunching over his arms, ready to pull it on. “A what? Who? W-W-What the hell does he— A _couple_?”

Keiko leaned back on the couch, stretching to show Miles her padd, which displayed a bright photo from three, nearly four years ago. Miles wrenched his shirt on and took the padd.

In the picture, Garak was a bit skinnier than he was today. He knelt beside Keiko in DS9’s teeny-tiny botanical bay, the day Keiko had attempted to quell her upsets by planting a vegetable garden. Miles remembered Garak had been one of several people to volunteer to play botanist with Keiko, but by the end of the day, Garak was the only one still there, knees on white slats, hands in the dirt, chattering amicably to Miles’ wife.

Miles zoomed out a bit on the photo, and saw why Keiko had chosen this one: off to the side of the picture, Julian Bashir stood there in his smart turquoise-shouldered uniform, holding a tricorder and looking proudly at the work Keiko had done.

“Julian was looking at you, sweetheart,” Miles said to Keiko softly, as she came up beside him and hooked her hand over his arm. “You worked so hard.”

“Garak worked even harder,” Keiko said with a quiet smile. “He talked to me for so long about... feeling lost and purposeless here on the station, but finding work to do, finding joy in watching something grow. I told you – he used to be a gardener. He keeps on tending the bay, Miles, just like I do.”

“Still.” Miles frowned at the padd. “Julian’s just a friend of Garak’s, love, as little sense as that makes to me. Nothin’ to see there but pride, maybe.”

“Oh, you don’t see the longing?” Keiko took back the padd and had another look. “Seems like longing to me. It’s all new to him. Tentative, affectionate longing.”

Miles chuckled. “Oh, come _on_. Is _this_ what the madness is about? I’ve heard a dozen rumours about Garak this week but, please, none of them are true, are they? People are projecting fantasies onto them, that’s all. Seeing things that aren’t there. Maybe it’s all this Dominion anxiety, we’re all looking for some meaningless, frivolous escape.”

Keiko gave him a sweet smile. “Well, I, for one, Miles, intend to win the competition.”

“You what?”

“I overheard Dax saying the prize is a date in a holosuite, with _real_ food. Think of it. We could have dinner anywhere in time and space at no cost.”

“No cost? No cost? Keiko, if you’re about to ask what I think you’re about to ask, that’s about as far from ‘no cost’ as—”

“You could get them to do anything!” Keiko pleaded, bright-eyed and smiling. “Julian’s your best friend, Miles, you could nudge him into posing for you. Going by what Jake and Nog told me, if you don’t mention the competition you wouldn’t actually be breaking the rules.”

Miles made a disparaged noise. “I’m not using Julian like that. Besides, I don’t think he wants me within fifty feet of his personal relationships, not after that incident with the Romulan magistrate and her _hair_. Worse: once I get him talking he won’t shut _up_ , particularly about _Garak_. He says more in a single sentence than I put in an entire personal log.”

“Don’t talk to him, then,” Keiko said. “Just... invite them over, offer a drink. Get them to sit next to each other.”

Miles made several flabbergasted noises, but none of them were anywhere near convincing enough to change the mind of his wife. Finally he sighed, hung his head, and uttered, “Fine. But if Garak robs our quarters I’ll be prying those little grey scales off his face one-by-one – _while_ Julian watches.”

Keiko’s smile turned smug. “I think he’s smart enough not to cross you.”

“Let’s hope so.”

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Benjamin Sisko steepled his fingers, and nodded. “Meeting adjourned. Dismissed.”

The senior staff rocked to their feet and slowly readied themselves to leave the wardroom, uttering to each other about lunch.

“Doctor – a moment of your time,” Benjamin called, standing up. Bashir paused near the wardroom’s exit. He patted Dax’s back as she went ahead, and the doors whispered shut. Bashir approached, and Benjamin nodded to him. “Doctor, I have some files I’d like you to review at your earliest convenience. I believe you have a lunch break scheduled for now.”

“Ah,” Bashir opened his mouth, and it stayed open for a bit. “Yes. Yes, I do, but—”

“Excellent.” Benjamin handed over a padd. “The U.S.S. Gallant collected this data from the remains of a destroyed shuttle found along the Cardassian border, and I was wondering if you’d find any medical value in the information.”

“Yes, of course, sir—” Bashir hesitated.

“Something the matter, doctor? You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?” Benjamin held back a smile, knowing full-well where Bashir was meant to be.

“Oh, no, sir, it’s just— Well, Garak, sir, I have a lunch date. Well, not a date. Just a meeting. A rendezvous.”

“Of course. Well, why don’t you invite him up here?” Benjamin beamed. “As a Cardassian I’m sure he could only be of assistance.”

Bashir relaxed a bit. “Oh. Okay.” He tapped his combadge. “Bashir to Garak.”

A pause, then, “ _Why, doctor, it’s almost as if my dining companion has grown totally invisible to the naked eye. I hear his voice somewhere..._ ”

Bashir smiled shyly, scratching the back of his neck. “Captain Sisko needs me for something, and he’s – well, he wants you to help too. We’re in the wardroom.”

“ _I see._ ” Garak waited a moment, then sighed. “ _Well, I suppose I’d best be on my way, then. Garak... ‘out’._ ” The commline blipped, and Bashir sat down to study.

Benjamin took the head of the table, fiddling with another padd, flipping it and spinning it on a finger like a flattened baseball. After a couple of minutes, Garak arrived in the wardroom, saw Bashir, and smiled.

“Hello, my dear doctor.” Garak glanced at Benjamin and gave a curt bow, their eyes locked. “Captain.”

“Mr. Garak.”

Bashir offered Garak the chair beside him. “Come take a look at this. Parts of this report seem legitimate, but— Anything?” He showed Garak the medical files. “That’s not true, about you having four nipples, is it?”

Garak laughed heartily, head back, hand on his chest. Bashir laughed along, unsurely, but his smile was genuine. Benjamin took as many photos as he could, as secretively as he could.

“Not at _all_ , doctor,” Garak said fondly. “I believe what you’ve stumbled across here is some form of practical joke. Cardassians do not have nipples at all, as you may well recall.”

“Yes.” Bashir seemed relieved. “I was starting to wonder if something unspeakable had happened to yours.”

Garak shook his head, getting to his feet. He stood behind Bashir and put his hands on both shoulders, a gesture which Bashir responded to with a smile and an easy shoulder-roll, apparently relaxing into Garak’s warmth.

“Now,” Garak said, “as I can certainly vouch that that report is quite phony, I do hope there’s nothing to keep you from joining me at the Replimat. I was planning to try that dish you recommended – what was it—?”

“Chicken tikka masala,” Bashir said, looking back at Garak, who kept his hands on his shoulders. “Oh, yes, I think you’ll like it. I gave the replicator the exact roti recipe my mother used. Burnt bits included. I had to try nearly fifty times before I got it right.”

Bashir got up, putting the padd down on the table. Garak’s hand slid slowly down his arm...

Bashir only seemed to remember Benjamin at the last second, turning fast. “Oh. I hope you don’t mind, Captain. It’s just, I think Garak’s right, it is a lot of nonsense. I know for a _fact_ that Cardassians don’t hoot like owls when they’re angry. If anything I think this document was translated wrong. Very... _very_ wrong.”

Benjamin gave an open-handed ‘go ahead’ gesture, wearing his most professional smile. “Just making sure. Have a good meal, gentlemen.”

Garak bowed again, then opened the wardroom door and stood by to let Bashir out first.

As their friendly voices vanished behind the door, Benjamin pried his padd up and began swiping through his new photo collection, grinning at the ones where Garak held Bashir’s shoulders and Bashir looked back at him. It was only the dim, diffused lighting in a dark room, Benjamin was sure, but it certainly did look like they each had the twinkle of love in their eyes.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


“Rohhhhm,” Leeta begged, scrunched down to hold Rom’s hands at the right height. She gave him her prettiest pout. “Do it for me. Pleeeeeeeease?”

Rom hesitated, then hesitated again. “Uhhhhhh.” He blushed. “Allllright.”

He turned towards an occupied table, the one nearest the barrier on Quark’s second level, where the red lights from below only lit the tables with warm ambience, and Garak and Bashir were silhouetted, leaning towards each other, mid-way through a heated argument.

“Not yet, though,” Rom said worriedly.

“No, not yet,” Leeta agreed, clutching her padd and glancing around nervously in case Quark noticed they weren’t working. “Right when they stand up.”

Rom busied himself wiping down the same three tables over and over, before moving to one that still had customers and making them yelp. He apologised and backed away, giving Leeta a desperate, worried look.

“But you didn’t _like_ Far’zyny’s third soliloquy,” Bashir grumbled, thrusting his open hands towards Garak. “You can’t tell me it was xis best work if you wanted to smash the padd you read it on.”

“Oh, I think I can,” Garak argued coolly. “The best of a bad lot is something I think you’re quite familiar with, dear doctor, after you made me read – what was that delightful tome – _Green Eggs and Ham_ —”

Bashir laughed so hard he rocked back on his chair, then flopped close again, murmuring, “You like Dr. Seuss and you’ll never convince me otherwise, Garak. There’s nothing more Cardassian than philosophical and political commentary wrapped up in colourful metaphor.”

“If I must make myself clear: the only doctor I’ve ever come close to liking is you. And even that is a most questionable statement.”

Bashir rolled his eyes, humming. “Mm. I’ll let you believe that.” He started to get up, and Leeta squeaked and waggled a hand against Rom’s back. Rom dropped his wiping cloth in someone’s Raktajino and barely even noticed, now plodding up to a full strut and approaching the couple just as Garak stepped out from the table—

Rom barged past, shouldering into Bashir and sending him toppling in Garak’s direction. Rom hurried away before they noticed it was him and before Quark heard the commotion from up here and accused his brother of anything.

But Rom reached the end of the upper pathway, and turned back, creeping close again, seeing how gently Garak soothed Bashir and straightened his uniform for him, and how Bashir assured his friend he was “ _really quite all right, no need to worry_ ,” and smiled, taking a breath.

Garak and Bashir left Quark’s together, still chatting, still bickering, and still close enough to touch.

With a big smile, Rom went to Leeta’s side, and asked, “Did you get it?”

Leeta had a hand over her mouth, hiding her huge grin. “Look! Isn’t it perfect?” She showed him a picture: Bashir collapsed in Garak’s arms, Garak holding him around the waist, gazing at him with surprise but no small amount of joy. From this slight side-view, Bashir’s expression was mostly just a nose and parted lips, but he looked as appreciative that Garak was there to catch him as Garak was.

“It’s wonnnderful,” Rom said, smiling at Leeta. “I think you’ll definitely win.”

“Oh, I hope so! Thank you so _much_ , Rom!” Leeta jumped to hug him, cheek pressed to the top of his head, then went to appease those poor customers with a dirty rag on their table.

Rom gazed after her, sighed, and went away, a happy little sun shining in his heart.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Garak was suspicious. There was no getting around it, really. Julian apologised to Miles straight off the bat, right after “Hello,” and decided to make up for Garak’s sullen lurking energy by being the chirpiest, perkiest man in the room.

Julian plopped himself down on the O’Brien family’s pink couch with a bounce, and cried, “Oh, thank you!” as Miles handed him a Scotch whiskey.

“You?” Miles offered Garak an identical Scotch.

Garak did his suspicious thing, peering at the drink and not taking it. “Rather an uncommon gesture, is it not? Forgive me for asking, Mr. O’Brien, but—”

“Look,” Miles said bluntly, “it’s not poisoned.”

“Take the drink, Garak,” Julian urged, and Garak did.

Miles seemed to crowd himself against Garak, encouraging, “Sit, please,” and Garak stepped back, almost bumping Julian’s knees. Julian grabbed Garak’s tunic and tugged him down, so they sat beside each other. Weirdly, Miles seemed content with that, and pulled up a dining chair to sit opposite, his own drink in his hands between his parted thighs. He stared at Julian and Garak for a while.

Julian looked about softly. “Right,” he said. “Well.”

“Beautiful quarters, I must say,” Garak remarked. “I see your lovely wife’s touch in the details. Yet I remain curious... to what reason do we owe our invitation here tonight?

Miles grunted, suddenly more interested in a handheld padd than his guests. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my idea to have you here, and leave it at that.”

“Ah.” Garak shot Julian a knowing look. “Trying to bring your most diametric acquaintances together, are we?”

Julian raised his hands. “Don’t look at me! If I had my way you two wouldn’t be in the same room, ever.”

Garak chuckled. “Now we know that’s rather far from the truth, doctor.” He sipped his drink at last, and stuck out his tongue, pained by the taste. “If you had your way Chief O’Brien and I would argue over who gets to be your best friend, singing your praises while playing spies and fighting ‘baddies’ side-by-side with you in the holosuites.”

Miles snorted and tried not to smile, still thumbing at his padd.

Julian’s cheeks burned and his spine tingled. “Well. Scotch is a good start. Good flavour. Not replicated, is it?”

“Hm. No,” Miles said vaguely. He tried to fold his arms, but his drink and padd were both in the way. He looked dreadfully uncomfortable and Julian didn’t have a damn clue what to do about it. He got the continued impression the Chief found his ongoing relationship with Garak distasteful, just as everyone else on the station did. Julian had gotten so hopeful when Miles had invited him and Garak here together, but now the man wasn’t even _looking_ at them.

Julian decided to take the lead, hoping that if he relaxed, Garak and Miles would follow – so he heaved a great, relieved sigh and sank back against the couch, eyes hooded, one arm tossed up behind Garak. “Aaah... Um. Um. Garak! Tell us about— The botanical bay. Still tending it?”

“Yes. Weekly,” Garak said. “Pumpkin season is soon to be upon us.”

And that was that.

“Right,” Julian said. “Good. Isn’t that good... Chief?”

Miles seemed startled. “Hm? Hm.” He nodded vaguely. “Yup. Great.” He stared at Garak for a bit, then examined his padd, grunted in apparent dissatisfaction, then said, “I just... have some work to be doing, so... carry on. Pretend I’m not here.” He offered a plain, slightly forced smile. “Drink. Relax. Talk amongst yourselves.”

In his overly-polite customer service voice, Garak carried on talking about pumpkin season, acting nonchalant.

But Julian frowned, wondering what the hell was going on here. Miles was acting very strangely indeed. The padd bleeped every time he set his thumb on it, and a flash of light from the screen lit up the Chief’s double chin. Julian wondered if he was taking photographs. But... why? Surely not... Why would Miles want photos of him and _Garak_? Some sort of... blackmail? He was too good a man to sink that low, wasn’t he?

Even so, Julian drank, and tried to get comfortable, and angled his good side towards his friend just in case, but Garak was still stiff-backed and perched on the very edge of the couch.

So Julian lifted a finger and poked Garak’s shoulder. “At ease, soldier,” he murmured.

Garak glanced at him, going silent. He seemed to realise how tense he was, and took a breath, relaxing into the couch, and, by extension, into Julian’s spread arm.

Julian realised they’d fallen into a hug, but even with heat burning up his insides, he couldn’t pull away, and maybe didn’t want to. So he hugged his arm tighter around Garak’s shoulders, wondering if Miles would see and feel more comfortable too once he realised, yes, Julian really _did_ like this murderous Cardassian spy, so there. If he wanted photos of them together, he’d get exactly that.

Garak was looking at Julian a bit strangely, however. Sort of a ‘ _what are you doing to me and why are you doing it? _’ kind of look.__

Julian answered with a squeeze and a smile.

Garak blinked twice, then smiled back.

Okay, good, Garak liked hugs. That was a relief.

With a fresh breath and renewed politeness, Garak brought up the subject of soil temperature regulation – but Miles grunted, and Garak interrupted himself to ask, “Why, Mr. O’Brien, is something the matter?”

Miles stood up suddenly, padd tossed down. “Not a thing,” he said with a strained smile. “It’s just—” He _yaaaaaawned_ , arms out, shoulders rolling. “Later than I thought. Thanks for coming, both of you. I’ll, ah... see you around, I guess. Have a nice night.”

Julian looked up at his friend, astonished. “Excuse me?” He got to his feet and wandered closer to the Chief. “Miles, we just got here. Now you’re kicking us out?”

“That’s about the long and short of it, yeah. No hard feelings, eh?” He clapped Julian on the bicep, steering him towards the doors.

Julian stopped forcefully, turning on O’Brien and prodding him in the chest. “Now _look_ , Chief, it was very kind of you to invite us here for the evening, and thank you for the drink, by the way – but you can’t just bring me here and tell me to bring my ‘Cardie friend’ and not tell us anything about it or why, and then sit there doing ‘ _work_ ’ – or whatever it was you were really doing – and then kick us out after barely two minutes— Garak deserves better treatment than that. _I_ deserve better. I know you hate Garak but I really don’t think either of us appreciates being _taunted_ by an apparent offer of friendship.”

“I don’t _hate_ y—” Miles sighed, and had the good sense to look sorry. “Would you believe me if I told you I was just following orders?”

“Whose orders?” Julian demanded.

Miles looked small and awkward now. “Keiko’s?”

“Oh- _ho_! And she told you to _make nice_ with the lonely, exiled Cardassian, did she? And you had me here, what, as a buffer? As bait for Garak? Honestly, Miles, I didn’t think you could be so—”

Garak got up. “It’s quite all right, doctor, no need to start a fight. I believe Mr. O’Brien has done as he said, simply following orders. I doubt we can expect much more of him tonight; having us here must be quite taxing for such a _hard_ worker.”

Miles’ face coloured, but he was too tongue-tied to say anything. He knew he’d been insulted but couldn’t figure out what about, exactly.

Julian shoved his half-drunk Scotch at Miles, who took it. “Listen, Miles, I’ll _thank_ you not to mess either of us around like this. You may not like Garak, but I do.” He stepped outside with Garak, giving Miles a stern look. “And if you don’t want to accept that then... then maybe you and I have a problem.”

Miles’ expression fell somewhere between apologetic, disbelieving, and confused.

Turning away, Julian slunk into the blue-shadowed hallway with Garak, who seemed oddly okay with all of this, but gave Julian an understanding look. As the doors hissed shut, Julian looked back at the O’Brien’s quarters and sighed.

“Come now, doctor,” Garak said, a hand on Julian’s lower back. “Perhaps the station’s kindest medical officer and the station’s loneliest tailor ought to spend a little more time together.”

Julian managed a smile. “Oh?” He walked along, looking carefully at Garak. “What did you have in mind?”

  


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“You gotta be kidding me,” Kira uttered, head falling to meet her palm. “Jadzia, would you put that thing _down_?”

“And let you win the competition? Nuh- _uh_.” Jadzia leaned back in her Replimat chair, biting her glossy bottom lip as she aimed her padd towards the couple three tables over. “The competition’s days from closing and I thought I’d _missed_ my chance.” She hid away the padd and turned swiftly back to Kira when Garak flicked his sly gaze her way. Jadzia smirked and reached back to take up her fork, returning to her food. “They don’t usually eat together on Tuesdays. Fridays are their days.”

Kira huffed and waved her own fork in a shrug. “Who cares? The doctor probably had an operation run overtime that day and they’re catching up.”

Jadzia didn’t look convinced, and was far too happy about it. “They’re having an extra meal. Tuesday _and_ Friday.”

Kira decided not to care, and stabbed her fork into her fruit salad.

“Maybe they’re seeing each other more often,” Jadiza purred seductively. “Oh, that’s sweet.” She was looking over at them again. “Oh, they’re so cute together.”

Kira snuffled. “Cute?”

“ _Look_ ,” Jadzia sighed.

Kira looked, and saw Garak’s hand caress the back of Bashir’s, squeezing. They separated after only a moment, but even Kira had to admit that was kind of touchy-feely. Dax and Kira might have touched like that but they were bound in close companionship, the sort that came from being the only two high-ranking women on the station. A touch like that meant something. Emotional intimacy, which bled into physical affection, reassurance...

Now the doctor carried on rambling with his doe eyes open wide and his cheeks plump with half-chewed food, and Garak sat and nodded, then leaned in close to offer some cutting remark that made Bashir seethe with fury and then burst into another articulate volley of cheerful argument. He looked like he was having the time of his life, and Garak looked deeply content.

“You have to do it,” Jadzia said, handing Kira her padd. “You _have_ to get a photo of us.”

“Us— Who’s ‘us’?”

Jadzia was up, side-stepping tables and sneaking towards Bashir and Garak’s table. Kira held out the padd in a despairing gesture, but finally set her elbows on the table and aimed the camera towards her girlfriend, who now posed behind the couple, one hip cocked out, hands rising.

The weird part was that Jadzia got within three feet of the table and neither Garak nor Bashir looked up.

  


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Julian sniffed the air, sensing a wisp of Jadzia’s white orchid perfume. He looked left, then right, but only saw the back of her as she stepped away, poring over a padd with Kira as they left the Replimat, giggling.

“Something catch your eye, doctor?” Garak asked, following his gaze.

“My nose, actually,” Julian answered. But even as he spoke, something did catch his eye. Then another thing. Then another, another, another, and suddenly he felt very self-conscious, turning to Garak and asking, tight-throated, “Garak, these past few weeks... have you felt like people are paying us an awful lot of attention? Watching a bit too closely?”

“Watching me? My dear doctor, people are always watching me.”

“No, I mean—” Julian tilted and jerked his head, trying to indicate the twenty pairs of eyes that were turned their way, half a dozen padds in those people’s hands. “People. Are _watching_.”

“What makes you think it’s _you_ they’re watching?” Garak looked innocent and amused, which made Julian suspicious.

Julian levelled him with a stare. “You know what it’s about, don’t you? You know why everyone’s taking pictures.”

“ _Me_? My dear friend, I know nothing,” Garak said, hands up. “Absolutely nothing at all.”

“Oh, oh, of course,” Julian nodded sarcastically. “Right-hand man of the Obsidian Order knows nothing about anything. Oh, yes, that tracks perfectly.”

Garak gave him a winning smile. “I assure you, doctor, even if I did know something about everyone’s sudden interest in my ever-so-handsome Cardassian features, I’m sure it’s quite harmless.”

“Harmless?” Julian squinted. “You sure?” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling hot there. His ears were burning, too. And his inner thighs felt tight. “People can’t seem to take their _eyes_ off you.”

“Can you blame them?” Garak asked, tilting his head a little.

Julian hummed, ducking his head to grin. He glanced back up, and cocked his head to one side, smirking. “I suppose not.”

Garak gave a gentle smile. “Now! Need I _remind_ you, doctor, of the collection of great epics to come out of Vulcan in the twenty-third century—”

Julian knew he was being distracted, but fell back into easy conversation, for once welcoming how easily Garak could steer him away from the larger matter at hand. People were still watching Garak, watching _them_ , and if letting Garak sweet-talk him over lunch was the only way to prevent self-consciousness, he’d take that option.

  


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“Quark, for the last time, get _out_ of my office!” Odo slapped a padd down on his console desk.

“And I’m telling _you_ for the last time, this could be your final chance!” Quark spread his hands. “Switch on your security monitor. They’re in the Replimat right now! It’s Tuesday! I thought for sure last Friday would be everyone’s final big chance to get their entries in – lunch is the best time to see them together. But then imagine my surprise when the entries started flooding in again, barely twenty minutes ago!”

Odo rubbed his forehead, flattening out the stress wrinkles. “Quark, I’m not playing your ludicrous game. If they want to eat together, they can eat together, it’s none of my business. It’s none of _anyone_ ’s business.”

“Well, it is _mine_ ,” Quark said. “And I’ll get that strip of latinum from you even if it kills me.”

Odo chuckled. “If there was a chance it would kill you, maybe I’d give over a whole _case_ of latinum.”

Quark straightened up. “I refuse to be offended by that,” he said lightly, while being deeply offended. He sighed, and swiped a hand through the air. “Whatever,” he said. “Don’t enter. Your loss. But...” he turned towards the exit, and looked back with subdued dramatism, “if you did win, the dinner-in-a-holosuite prize doesn’t have to be _used_ , Odo. You have no stomach, no tastebuds, and no imagination – but so what? For all I care you could donate the prize to the happy couple themselves. I’m sure they’d enjoy the privacy of the holosuite after all this attention.”

“Hmph. You make it sound like the attention is unwanted. And you so comfortably assured me you had their _permission_ for this competition.”

Quark held up a hand over his mouth, fake-gasping. “Wait, are you saying... all this time... you actually believed me?”

“No,” Odo said flatly. The doors swept wide and the murmur of the Promenade came through around Quark’s lingering figure. “I was just curious to see how far the lie would take you before it came down around your unbelievably absurd ears.”

Quark harrumphed, straightening his jacket, ready to leave at last. “Final chance, Odo. I’m telling you now: with your God’s-eye-view of the station, you could win this competition easily. And everyone would find out you’re watching, and nobody would do crime ever again.”

“Of course,” Odo smiled. “ _You_ want the prize to go to the one person who doesn’t want it. And you’d keep the profits.”

Quark grinned slowly. “Between you and me, Constable, I think that’s what the Hu-mans call a ‘win-win’.”

He left, looking smug.

Odo leaned back in his chair, fingertips together under his smooth nose.

Purely out of curiosity, he poked at his console and brought up the security footage of the Replimat. Ah, yes. Garak, Bashir, together at a table, bantering, apparently oblivious to the crowds of paparazzi that had gathered at the lower edge of the Replimat, and on the upper level of the Promenade.

Odo watched for a while, thinking to himself that no matter what Quark said about ‘permission’, he wasn’t going to submit any image that hadn’t been approved by Garak or Bashir directly. Odo had no interest in the game, nor winning, nor besting anyone else. But if it gave him a way to confirm whether Quark really did have consent to exploit the tailor and the doctor, as Sisko seemed to believe, then...

Odo flicked away from the Replimat view, and began hunting down footage from a few weeks previously, a view he’d seen out of the corner of his eye as the console had cycled through camera angles late at night. It wasn’t hard to find – he remembered the time and date and the ID number of the turbolift, purely because he’d had Quark’s month-long tomfoolery in mind as he’d seen it.

“Aha.”

Odo scrubbed forward through the footage, and slowed down to normal speed as he saw Bashir and Garak boarding the turbolift. Garak was wearing a new tunic, a deep blue one with a gold zigzag inlaid down his chest. He was fiddling with a wrist cuff, and complained about a thread he’d forgotten to cut.

Bashir watched him, observing Garak twist and pull and try to nibble at the thread as the turbolift moved, but Garak grew frustrated when he failed.

“ _Here, let me,_ ” Bashir said, offering a hand, and slipped palm-to-palm with Garak as he lifted his arm, soon breathing against his wrist as he bit the thread, trying to snip it off with his teeth.

But Garak began to smile, then chuckle, then laugh as Bashir failed and failed, as his teeth slid off the too-short thread and only made it wet with saliva.

Bashir eventually huffed and gave up, lowering Garak’s arm back to his side for him, facing the front of the turbolift again, an embarrassed expression on his face, one which Garak admired for a while, drawing and releasing a breath.

They were still holding hands.

Light burst across their faces as the turbolift reached its destination, and Bashir’s hand slid free, his lips parting, his eyes shooting to Garak’s. Garak acted as if nothing had happened, and gestured for Bashir to leave the lift first. Bashir smiled before rushing out.

Yet Garak stayed put for a second longer, gazing after his friend, then down at his wet sleeve. He smiled... so softly. And then he followed, and the view of the turbolift was empty again.

Odo hummed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. He glanced up from his console in thought, only to see a long-legged figure pass by his windowed doors: Bashir striding down the Promenade, away from the Replimat. No Garak or amateur paparazzi in sight.

Mind made up, Odo went back and found the best moment in the video feed, viewed from front-on.

“Computer, freeze image. Transfer image at highest resolution to padd number two-five-one.” He got to his feet and picked up his padd, then strode to the exit. “Computer, locate Dr. Bashir.”

The computer replied, “ _Dr. Bashir is on the Promenade— Correction, Dr. Bashir is in the Infirmary._ ”

Odo nodded. He stepped out of his office, and headed in that direction, patting his palm with his padd.

  


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	2. Taking Back Control

“Doctor?”

Julian looked up at the sound of Odo’s gruff monotone. “Constable! What can I do for you?” He gave his best smile, reaching to hold Odo’s upper arm as they swung together into the quieter part of the Infirmary.

“It’s about the competition,” Odo said carefully.

Julian’s brow wrinkled. “Oh? Which competition would that be?”

“You don’t know?”

“Oh, I know of plenty of ongoing competitions, I’d just like to narrow down which one you mean. There’s Dax and Quark and their tongo, there’s my weekend tennis matches in the holosuite, there’s Kira’s springball, there’s Ensign Nyongo versus her—”

“Alright, alright, I get the picture,” Odo said curtly. “I’m referring to Quark’s station-wide enterprise regarding the photographs of yourself and Mr. Garak.”

Julian’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t say.”

He felt jittery all of a sudden – and his enthusiasm for answers seemed to register as a positive response to Odo, as Odo went on to say, with more certainty, “I thought it best to double-check I had your permission to use this image before entering.” He offered a padd.

Julian hesitated, then took the padd, and saw the picture—

“Oh, good _God_ ,” he breathed, heart leaping, pulse whacking his throat. “You look at these? The footage from the turbolifts?”

Odo seemed uneasy. “Only this time, doctor. I don’t go out of my way to watch.”

Julian relaxed a bit. “Oh. That’s a relief.” He thought of all the times he’d adjusted himself inside his skin-tight uniform, thinking nobody was looking... He nibbled his lower lip, and peered at the padd again. “So this is your... ‘entry’.” Playing it cool, he added, “I suppose it follows all the rules to the letter, doesn’t it, you being you.”

“I only hope it won’t make you uncomfortable,” Odo urged. “This was clearly a... _private_ moment shared between you and Mr. Garak.”

Julian felt a prickle of pleasure down his back and he didn’t know why. “Um. Well. Yes. I suppose. H-How many people do you think would see this?”

“From what I’ve observed, I think the whole station might. The competition got so popular after the first week, and excited the masses to such an extent that Sisko all but ordered me to leave it running. I think Jake’s enthusiasm had a lot to do with that decision.”

Julian gulped. If Odo had this, what did other people have? He couldn’t believe his face _did_ that – in this picture he looked utterly enamoured with Garak. He dreaded to think what anyone else saw when they looked at them together. Is that what strangers were taking pictures of? Julian Subatoi Bashir desperately trying and failing to hide the most _confusing_ crush he’d ever had in his life?

Odo was silent, watching Julian closely. “Doctor?”

“Hm?” Julian looked up.

“If you don’t want me to enter, I will not. I’ve found a dozen alternative ways to monitor Quark’s network channel besides paying _latinum_ and signing an entry form. Say the word and I can shut down the entire competition before its conclusion this Thursday. Sisko’s dedication to ‘morale’ be damned. ‘Morals’ are of greater value, I believe.”

Julian wasn’t sure what to say. “I... Oh... I-I-I don’t know...”

Odo added, “For the record, doctor... I believe the majority of the residents see your relationship with Garak as something friendly, that’s all; it’s simply ‘fun’ to make it appear romantic for the game. Although, Quark has certainly been promoting that alternate interpretation. Huh! As if real people’s relationships are up for ‘interpretation’.”

Julian smiled a bit. “Keeping people busy, though.”

“Perhaps too busy.” Odo latched his hands behind his back and tipped his nose forward.

After a moment more, Odo sighed. “Regardless of anyone’s intentions, or interpretations, or enjoyment of such frivolous pastimes, I want to make sure you know that whether or not there is... something... _real_ , between yourself and Mr. Garak, you are well within your rights to protect that relationship. Whether you want to end this lunacy, or let it continue under the pretense of it being ‘all in good fun’, I will stand by your choice. As will Captain Sisko, I know that much. He, like myself, was reliably informed this competition only came about with your express permission.”

Julian let that fact fly past him, determined not to react.

He sagged to one side, stealing one more look at the padd, seeing himself holding Garak’s hand. He still felt a static tingle in his chest just at the memory of it, and relived the moment with each and every glance.

Finally he drew a breath and handed Odo the padd. “Submit it,” he said. “And yes,” he smiled, “Quark had our complete permission. He wouldn’t lie about something so sensitive, I’m sure.”

Odo seemed surprised. “No,” he agreed, rotating the padd until it faced him. “No, perhaps he wouldn’t.”

Odo gave a nod, thanked Julian for his time, and strode out of the Infirmary.

Julian had to sit down once Odo was gone, staring blankly at the nearest screen. So _that_ was what was going on. People were trying to make him and Garak look like a couple. And from what Odo had shown him, Julian was starting to think nobody had to try very hard. No wonder everyone on the station signed up. It must’ve seemed like an easy task.

At least if Julian let the thing run its course, he might find out who’d actually given Quark permission in the first place, if in fact anyone had. Because it certainly hadn’t been him. Although, he realised... he’d kind of given it his blessing now, hadn’t he?

Julian smiled, eyes on his lap.

After a moment, he tapped his combadge. “Bashir to Garak.”

A scuffle. “ _Hello, doctor? Did I leave something behind at our table again? I can come by the Infirmary if need be._ ”

“No, no,” Julian said. “But I do need to talk to you. It’s important. Um. Tonight? Dinner. Eighteen-hundred hours, say.”

There was a smile in Garak’s voice as he replied, “ _It would be my pleasure, doctor. How about I treat you to a humble feast at Quark’s this time._ ”

“I’d love that.” Julian beamed. “And I hope you have a delightful afternoon.”

“ _How I try. You too, my dear doctor._ ”

The communication ended, and Julian leaned back in his chair with a cool breath gushing out of him. “Hmmmm,” he droned, eyes on the ceiling.

So! Answers, at last! _This_ must be why Julian struggled to get women to go out with him. It wasn’t that he was too awkward, talked too much, only really knew about tennis and medicine, or that he preferred to debate vehemently rather than agree with people. Everyone thought he and Garak were a _couple_! Queer! Dating! In love! Maybe sleeping together?

With a helpless, wonky smile and a slow lip bite, Julian supposed... well, that idea wasn’t the worst in the world.

  


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Garak arrived at Quark’s, but after leaning on the upper balcony for a minute, shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowds, then checking the time, he commed Bashir and asked, “Running late, doctor?”

“ _Oh, not at all. I’m downstairs. Little booth. Oh, I see you! There you are. Hello._ ”

Garak nodded low and waved, seeing the happy scamp down there, leaning out from behind a perforated room divider. Bashir must’ve arrived early; the bar was packed and yet he’d secured a private booth.

Garak went down to greet him, taking both hands as Bashir stood up, then sat again with Garak beside him on the padded bench seat. “So, my _dear_ doctor, what was this terribly important thing you needed to discuss?”

Bashir hummed, eyes drifting in an uncertain yet loaded manner. “It’s about... Quark’s competition.”

“I see. Well, my tailor shop does well in terms of profit, I’ll admit, but I’d hardly call it reasonable competition. One is a bar, after all.”

Bashir hesitated. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Bashir stared at Garak for a while, then started to smile, that delightful little half-grin that curled up one side of his face. “Yooou liar. You know exactly what I mean.”

“Do I, now?” Garak purred, in that oozing way that let Bashir know he was right.

Bashir snuffled a laugh and rolled his eyes. “They’re making us look like a couple, Garak. Can you imagine? It’s been going all month long, apparently. I _knew_ something was up but I couldn’t put my finger on what. I don’t know what the rules are, exactly, but even Odo’s getting in on the action. Apparently Sisko approves, too. Either it’s a bizarre cover related to some bigger, serious issue, or...” Bashir shrugged, “or...”

“Or people might not despise either of us as much as we thought.”

Bashir blinked. “Pardon me?”

“Well, I’d like to think that nobody would be so focused on pairing us together unless they harboured some sort of affection for us, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t know about that...”

“At the very least, there is a certain level of empathy involved when thinking of how to frame a relationship as a romance.” Garak kept his tone on the verge of haughty. “One must find a way to relate to outsiders such as us, if only in terms of knowing what our romantic gestures might look like, and waiting to spot one.”

Bashir fretted, but shrugged and nodded. “I suppose.”

“Then again,” Garak pointed out, “the fact so many hundreds of people went ahead without our permission speaks to some great lack of consideration for our privacy. Perhaps they intended to hurt us. Or worse, they don’t see us as people with agency and feelings at all, merely toys to play with. No more real than a character in a holoprogram.”

Bashir looked down. “IIII don’t know,” he murmured. “Odo made it sound like it’s all for fun, that’s all.”

“And do you find it fun to be spied on, doctor?”

Bashir scratched his forehead with a thumbnail. “I... Mm.” He started to smile. “I know what _would_ be fun.” He caught Garak’s eyes, and grinned. “This competition, Garak... How would you like to _win_ it?”

  


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Kira looked up from her roll of hesperat just as it was on the cusp of falling apart. She chewed, peering into the thrum of evening activity at Quark’s. Her eyes skipped from the clicking, whirling dabo wheel and the cheering figures there to the nearby bar heaving with customers and Quark hurrying to serve them all... then across to the opening of a booth – and her eyebrows rose. The contents of her hasperat plopped out onto her plate, and she only glanced down once.

For the next ten minutes, she watched the couple in the booth carefully, her thoughts hopping between actual important things, but then wondering... maybe Jadzia was onto something. Maybe everyone was. Maybe Quark was right, somehow.

It did kind of look like a date.

Garak ordered food for the both of them, and once it arrived, they swapped half-and-half, yet continued to poke at each other’s plates as their conversation carried on. Bashir was animated, and Garak keen.

Kira polished off her own dinner, then turned in her stool and watched openly, elbows crooked back on the bar. Bashir was laughing, hand over his eyes, while Garak seemed to gesture around like he was telling a joke. They settled down, and Bashir leaned his chin on his hand, gazing at Garak for some time.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed the two of them. Quark’s bar at dinnertime was abuzz with hungry, horny, hoggish people, and nobody much cared to see what other people were doing unless they could be exploited. Kira was sitting directly in the line of sight of that booth. No-one else was watching. If she got a shot from here, her photo would be completely unique compared to everyone else’s.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she uttered, scowling as she swung back to the bar, snatched up her padd, and found the camera setting. She took one photo, then swivelled back to Quark, gave him a wave, and gritted her jaw as he approached. “I’m signing up for the competition,” she said, in the tone of ‘ _I will murder you if you make a joke_.’

Quark just grinned his pointy-toothed grin and slid her a signup padd. She transferred a strip of latinum with a thumbprint, uploaded her submission, then took her own padd and strode with purpose for the exit.

She paused to look back once, however.

Garak looked happy, lost in Bashir’s eyes.

Kira wore a tiny, tiny smile as she left.

  


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“Think about it, though,” Julian insisted, leaning so close he could touch Garak’s wrist, but he didn’t. “We might not have anyone to date, but if we teamed up and won, you and I could get that holosuite dinner to share. We’ve dined at every restaurant and eatery _on_ this station, imagine how many other places we could visit. Brunch on Bajor, without needing to pack for winter first. Dinner on Draken Four, I’ve heard they do an unbeatable scaleless hlai’hwy. Or – or – or a picnic on Earth. Pizza, sandwiches, jam roll. You’d love it, I promise.”

Garak was just smiling. “Indeed, it all sounds perfectly lovely, doctor. The issue is not what use the prize is, however, but the steps we’d have to take to win it.”

“Oh, please,” Julian tutted. “How hard could it be? Just set up a padd camera on a tripod to make it look like someone else took the photo... and we just...” He wet his lips, eyes searching Garak’s. “Well. We just. I don’t know. Do something. Romantic.” He flushed hot, remembering the rules Garak had just conveyed to him. “In public.” He breathed. “Um. Maybe. Maybe somewhere quiet, late at night. So nobody interrupts.”

Garak studied him for a bit, then asked, “Is that something you’d be willing to do? With me?”

Julian shrugged. “Depends. W-Would you...?”

Garak inclined his head. “If you’re in, I’m in, doctor.”

“Oh,” Julian breathed. He beamed. “In that case...” He stabbed the last of Garak’s pasta and shoved it into his mouth, halfway to his feet. He shot Garak a wink, then said, “Meet you at your quarters, twenty-two hundred. We’ll figure out the logistics then.”

Garak nodded once.

Julian was already away, squeezing past a throng at the bar to offer his thumbprint to Quark. “Competition,” he called, over the noise.

Quark’s foreridge rose. “Really?”

Julian grinned. “Really.”

One strip of latinum later, he turned back to see Garak, but Garak was gone.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Try as he might, Julian couldn’t keep himself from feeling _flirty_. He wanted to laugh and tease and slow-dance with someone, move his hips... He caught sight of himself in every reflective surface he passed on the way to Garak’s quarters, and found himself preening.

Once in the turbolift, he thumbed at the cork in the wine bottle he’d brought, then blushed and stopped, suddenly conscious of how sexual the gesture might look if someone was watching – and now he knew Odo might be. He tried to stop blushing, but was still blushing as he headed down the Habitat Ring to Garak’s doors.

He hit the door buzzer and waited, tugging at the high collar of his glossy blue shirt. His heart thrilled. And he was very determined not to think about why.

Garak opened the doors, right in front of Julian. “Good _evening_ , my dear doctor. Twenty-two hundred hours, right on time. And dressed so smartly, too.”

Julian was inches from his nose. “Hello.”

Garak welcomed him inside with a sweeping hand, and Julian stepped in, tugging at his collar again.

“Ahh— You look...” Julian smiled. “You look good, Garak.”

Garak looked down at himself. “This is the same outfit I wore earlier. Lunch and dinner.”

“Yes, but,” Julian put down the wine on a side table, “you looked good then, too.”

Garak pondered that, starting to smile. “How kind of you to say. Please—” He offered a seat. “Make yourself at home. Now let me get some glasses...”

Julian sank into a plump grey chair, knees apart, hands held close to the floor. He accepted the glass of wine Garak poured him and gave him a dazzled smile in return. “Thank you.”

He stood up again, as he’d taken the only nearby seat, and now stepped into Garak’s warmth, clinking his glass against his friend’s.

“To health, beauty, and love, doctor,” Garak said, chin rising.

Julian smiled, then nodded. “Health, beauty, and love. Mmm. How appropriate for a doctor and a tailor about to embark on a _grand_ romantic adventure.”

“Quite,” Garak agreed with a tip of his head, eyes on Julian as they drank.

Julian liked how the wine left a little redness on Garak’s lips. Wet...

Julian drew a breath and looked down. “Right! To business. Let’s brainstorm: how do we win this competition?”

Garak pouted. “Oh, is the flirting over already? I was rather enjoying it.”

Julian looked at him, swirls of pleasure rushing around in his belly. “You were?”

“Very much. Of course,” Garak leaned in, placating fingertips touching Julian’s arm, “it’s all rather a good act, isn’t it? Tonight, the characters known as Elim Garak and Julian Bashir are falling in love, and thus it only seems fitting to embody their actions as we find a way to stage their performance so believably.”

Julian nodded, hot and cold with alternating pangs of disappointment and relief as Garak spoke. Finally Julian nodded once more, and agreed, “Oh, yes, absolutely. It’s pretend flirting. Doesn’t really count, does it. Not... _real_.”

“So we can flirt all we like,” Garak smiled.

Julian bit his lip, grinning. “In that case... Elim...? You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, you’re _such_ a sweet man,” Garak moaned, warm hand cradling Julian’s elbow. “And you smell beyond delicious. I could just lick you right up.”

Julian cooed, pressing into Garak’s shoulder, eyes on his lips. “Darling, I could just _let_ you.”

As Garak purred in approval, Julian leaned in for a kiss, eyes hooded...

Wait, no— He huffed and stepped back, fist over his tingling mouth, relaxing to flash a jocular smile and laugh as if he’d only been playing. “Yes. Yes, like that.”

“I think we’re getting the hang of this,” Garak said, swilling his wine around, then sipping. “Although you’re quite correct, we should – what was that word you used? – _brainstorm_.”

Julian paced along Garak’s small room, wondering if they should’ve gone to his own quarters, which were twice the size. But he paced back, and suggested, “We need to decide what ‘romantic’ would mean. I had a look at other people’s entries and...” he blushed, stilling his feet just to peer down shyly into his drink, “there’s apparently a very broad spectrum of what ‘romantic’ means to other people.”

“Oh?”

“Most of the pictures are just us eating together,” Julian said. “It makes sense, given a lot of people view dining as romantic, especially in Human cultures. But.” He sipped his drink for courage. “There’s a lot of art in there as well. From stick-figure scribbles, to terrible collages with our faces pasted over other people, to holoimages, to actual paintings. Much of which takes a less virtuous view of our, uhm... ‘romance’.”

Garak’s grin let Julian know he’d seen the entries. He confirmed with a bold claim of, “I particularly enjoyed the one where you’d just stepped out of the bath.”

Julian felt heat roll up his body. “I-I-I didn’t see that one.”

“Ah, suffice to say, the towel didn’t do much.”

Julian rubbed the back of his burning neck, smiling helplessly. “And where were you in that scenario?”

“Holding the towel.”

Julian laughed. “Oh dear.” He gathered himself up, and went on, “Ah— Anyway, the point is, given the great abundance of standard Replimat-lunch images, we’d really need to go above and beyond to get a winning shot, wouldn’t you say? We can’t just be seated close, or standing side-by-side, or—” His breath caught. “Even holding hands might be a little unoriginal. Odo got a shot of us—”

“In the turbolift,” Garak finished.

“Yes.”

They gazed at each other for only a moment before looking away, chuckling. Julian was unwilling to show how fond he was of that memory. Even weeks later, he wasn’t sure if he’d held onto Garak’s hand on purpose or by accident. All he knew was that Garak hadn’t pulled away.

“But,” Garak asked, “if we intend to make things more explicit, doctor, then I must ask: are you intending to create some manner of pornography with me?”

Julian spluttered, then cackled, “Garak!”

“No? Are you certain? Perhaps... hmm, if I were to ravage you right here, at this very moment. If I were to – grab you, and undress you, and take you with passion as you perch so _prettily_ at the edge of this table...” Garak ran his fingertips along the rim of his little dining table.

Julian had to remember to breathe. “Mhhh...” He shuddered and cleared his throat, hurrying to say, “It might be somewhat lacking in subtlety if we did that. Don’t you think? For all intents and purposes this is supposed to be a family competition, despite the fact some outlying participants decided to bend the rules for their own amusement. Besides, you _told_ me the rules, the picture needs to be taken in public place.”

Garak’s eyes twinkled. “If you are willing to undress in public then I’m sure that can be arranged.”

Julian laughed easily, shouldering Garak in friendly rebuke. “Now look, you. Just because it’s more explicit doesn’t mean it’s more romantic. Romance should be...” He waved his glass. “Intimate. Friendly. Gentle? Not necessarily physical, but showing sensuous physicality to an audience would likely help us convey a clear message.” He looked curiously at Garak. “But that’s me. What... um. What is romance for you?”

“If I’d had any previous romance in my life to speak of, perhaps I would know.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Garak said. “Intimate, friendly, and gentle sounds perfectly enticing to me, so long as word never gets back to my Cardassian acquaintances. Public antagonistic aggression is the favoured Cardassian courting style. The question is, how do you and I achieve intimate, friendly, and gentle?”

“Mood lighting,” Julian said firmly, one finger up. “The second the lights go down, pupils blow wide, and there’s nothing more seductive-looking than bedroom eyes. All you’d need do is look at me and smile and it would look like you’re in love.”

Garak looked at him and smiled. “How intriguing.”

Julian repressed a hot shiver. Needing to reset, he went to lean a shoulder on the wall, peering out at the stars through the oval porthole, wine glass in hand. Garak came to stand beside him. Julian waited a few seconds, then snuck a glance at him. He seemed so studious.

“What’s on your mind?” Julian asked, voice low.

“Mm. It’s only that, if we are to create art,” Garak said, gazing at the universe beyond the glass, “then every part of the production must be taken into account.” He turned his eyes to Julian’s chest, a hand caressing the curve of his lower back. “As a tailor creates a shirt, he thinks of its purpose, and how it will be viewed from every angle. The structure, the fall of the fabric, the way it moves, and is to be moved in. You mention ‘mood’ lighting. May I also suggest mood clothing?”

Julian shrugged. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear, nothing,” Garak said, clearly pained by his own lie.

Julian laughed, shaking his head. “Come on, out with it.” He put his wine down on the floor, then stood, arms out. “Tear it apart.”

Garak’s eyes widened in shock. “Why, doctor! How very forward of you.”

Julian shoved him. “I mean verbally, you walking disaster. Tell me what’s wrong and we can fix it.”

“Well, the fabric, for starters,” Garak said, plucking the shirt out of Julian’s pants. “Glossy it may be, but your skin is dark and if we lowered the lights then the shirt would outshine you, and there’s no greater sin when it comes to fashion. You need something delicate, something subtle, so what shines is your eyes, your lips, the corner of a tooth as you turn that charming smile my way.” His fingers had curled under Julian’s chin, and Julian prayed he couldn’t feel the thump of his heartbeat in his neck.

“Alright,” Julian whispered, mouth dry. “So I’ll take my shirt off.” He gulped. “Um— Um, I mean. Sh-Should probably put something else on, though. Afterwards.”

Garak gave a quiet hum. “I may have something in my shop. We’d have to go down there to find it.”

“And you?” Julian’s hands wrapped softly around Garak’s wrists, kept away from his heat by the thickness of his tunic cuffs. “Could you wear that pretty blue one again? I did love that.”

Garak smiled. “Did you?”

“Oh, very much.” Julian drew a pleasant breath as Garak stepped away, taking his wine with him. Julian’s entire body was tingling with pleasure and he adored it, blazing with something that wasn’t quite arousal but it was close enough that he recognised its footsteps. It whispered to him but he tried not to hear.

Garak went to his replicator, and requested, “One collapsible tripod for a padd, please. And a remote button to trigger photographic captures.”

The replicator whirred, and Garak took out the items he’d requested.

“I suggest,” Garak said, putting the things on the table, then looking around for something, flipping his bed pillows and tousling his blanket, “we make up a scenario, a fantasy situation in which you and I are romantically involved.”

Julian brightened. “Oh yes. Something that would lead us to be together late at night in... oh, a hallway, one of the quieter ones.”

“In nice clothes.”

“In nice clothes, exactly.” Julian watched as Garak found his padd under his bed, and went to put it on the table too, so near to Julian that Julian could smell his day-faded cologne, faint enough that he really just smelled like the oldest thread bobbins in his tailor’s toolbox, which was secretly a favourite scent of Julian’s.

“Everyone around here wants to believe we’re dating,” Garak said, reaching to fiddle with Julian’s collar, unbuttoning it absent-mindedly. “So perhaps in this scenario we’re headed home after a date. We’re a little tipsy.”

“And a little flirty,” Julian added, slinking close to Garak, breathing in his scent without shame. “Mmmm, so flirty.”

Garak swallowed. “We walk together... Pause in the hallway... only for a moment.”

Julian nosed closer, breathing hot on Garak’s lips. “Thinking about a kiss...?”

“ _Desperately_ ,” Garak whispered, hands on Julian’s waist. “I don’t think there’s a person on this station who wouldn’t see a touch like this as romantic.”

“Craving,” Julian groaned.

“With every heartbeat,” Garak agreed. “ _Aching_ to kiss you deeply. Hold you. Have you be mine.”

Julian moaned at the back of his throat, eyes shut, lip bitten, nose touching Garak’s cheek. “We... would actually kiss?”

Garak inched back. “No, no, don’t worry, doctor, it’s all for the picture. That’s all.”

Julian chased after him by another inch, but Garak had looked away and stepped back, and Julian remembered himself, breathing slowly and turning to the porthole to cool off. His skin was searing.

“God help me,” he whispered to himself, pressing his fiery forehead with the back of a cooler hand. He wanted to be _touched_ now, and it was very tough to drag himself from that frame of mind when he was actively trying to cultivate it for the sake of their task. He adjusted his stance by a step, glad his shirt was untucked to cover his crotch.

“Doctor,” Garak called. He was over by the doors now, that special blue tunic hung over one arm, tripod and everything in the same hand. “If you’ll come down with me to the shop, we’ll find you something to wear.”

Julian nodded. “Right. Of course.” He hurried.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  



	3. The Act Itself

They made their way from Garak’s quarters to the turbolift in silence, Julian glad for the cool air of the hallway soothing his blush, but knowing it had to be agony for Garak, too cold all the time, to be forced to linger in the chill for the sake of a free dinner.

“You know,” Julian said, as they got into the lift, “Garak—” He addressed the lift, “Promenade,” then turned back to his friend, “You don’t have to do this with me. Not if you don’t want to.”

Garak gave him a small smile as the lift whirred along. “My dear doctor, if I didn’t want to do this, I most certainly would not be doing it.”

A comfortable gladness settled inside Julian. “Alright.” He faced the front of the lift. “Good to know.” He swallowed, trying out a thought, then rejecting it. But Garak had noticed his intake of breath, and now he looked curious, so Julian said, softly, “Call me Julian, would you? I’m off duty. And we’re technically on a date.”

Garak held his eye. “As you wish, my dear. Julian it shall be.”

Julian’s heart leapt. “May I call you Elim?”

“Aaahhh, if you must,” Garak said wearily, which made Julian grin.

They reached the Promenade. It wasn’t quite deserted, but all the fuss centred at Quark’s, so Julian and Garak had a straight, uninterrupted walk to Garak’s Clothiers.

Garak unlocked the shop, while Julian peered into the dark windows, seeing spooky shadows – which all at once weren’t so spooky, as the lights came on and the Humanoid figures revealed themselves to be party dresses and wedding saris and suits and tunics and gowns and rows and rows of hats.

“You look around now,” Garak said, pacing into the shop, “and shout if you find something you like. I’ll be behind the curtain.”

The next minute passed. Julian had picked out six shirts and two pairs of trousers before Garak emerged. And emerge he did: he swept the red curtain back and he stepped out in his finery, a rich blue tunic centred by a plunging gold pattern that accentuated the strength of his figure and kept even a stocky middle looking trim. The colour made his grey skin shine, and as he approached Julian, Julian’s lips parted in a smile, murmuring in delight, “I forgot how _gorgeous_ the blue makes your eyes look.”

Garak showed him his wrists. “No threads this time.”

“As it should be.”

Garak took the collection of items from Julian, looking at them all and tossing them one by one onto his tailor’s desk. “No. No. My word, no. Too shiny. Too big. There’s no hope of tailoring that to fit your figure. Absolutely not.” He was now empty-handed, and began strutting about the shop, on the hunt for something better.

Julian folded his arms. “Tell me again how you don’t have a problem with my taste in clothes.”

“Your taste is fine, doctor, it’s the digestion I have a problem with.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “So what would you suggest?”

“Ah, how about this?” Garak brought up something purply-pink with a slight gold sheen, holding it up to Julian’s throat. “Hangs well. Not especially reflective. Modest, but with a few buttons undone... Yes, I think this could work. Give me a moment, and I’ll tailor it to fit.”

Julian opened his arms in case Garak needed to take measurements, but he was already off, spinning scissors around a finger and muttering about seams.

“Memorised me, have you?”

“Oh, every inch of you,” Garak said, making unbelievably quick work of ripping out side stitches and pinning them back in the proper place.

“ _Every_ inch?” Julian crooned, breath teasing Garak’s ear, eyes toying with his gaze as he glanced over.

“Need I remind you how little your Starfleet uniform leaves to the imagination,” Garak said, attention falling back to his work. “I _do_ mean every inch.”

Julian leaned on the desk, watching. “Tell me then.”

“I wouldn’t want to embarass you.”

“In the name of flirtation, then,” Julian said, fingers stroking Garak’s sleeve. “Tell me how _big_ I am.”

“Rather average for a Human, I’m afraid,” Garak said. “But when excited, that’s quite a different matter.”

“When I’m—”

Garak gave him a devilish look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Julian loved the heat inside him. “You’re not.”

“Right-leaning,” Garak went on, speaking carelessly as he flipped the shirt over on the desk and took to it with a handheld stitcher that whizzed along, flashing red. “Although you have been known to stray left when the mood takes you.”

Julian wet his lips. “And you?”

Garak tucked away his stitcher, and smoothed out the completed shirt, looking coolly at Julian. “Julian, my dear, I only go left.” He handed Julian the shirt. “Now hurry and put this on. I’ll be waiting.”

Julian stood staring for few more too-fast heartbeats, then grinned, and looked down. “You are a beast, Garak.” He turned, smirking to himself as he entered a changing booth and swept the curtain closed.

He fumbled and breathed in huffs as he bared his chest, then wriggled into the new shirt. “Ooh, it’s smooth,” he called out. “Very nice.” It plopped into place around his figure, and he looked in the full-length mirror, surprised he could look that good. “Garak, you are a genius.”

He stepped out in a swoosh of curtain fabric, only to walk right into Garak’s waiting hands. Julian breathed unsteadily, feeling Garak smooth down the shirt, touching Julian’s waist over and over.

Their eyes met.

Julian waited to hear something encouraging, or apologetic... anything.

Garak stepped back. “You’re beautiful,” Garak said, eyes lowered. “Entirely too stunning for me to take credit.”

“The shirt helps, though,” Julian said softly, touching Garak’s cheek with the back of his hand as he walked past. “Come on, let’s go find a good hallway.”

They locked up the shop again, and with the tripod and the other bits and bobs under Garak’s arm, they took a turbolift to the blue-shadowed hallway outside the wardroom, which was an unlikely place for passers-by at this time of night.

The hall curved a bit to the right, and they walked up and down the section a few times, Julian tapping wall lights on and off, parting ways with Garak while Garak set up the tripod.

“Here, I think,” Julian agreed, coming to the exact spot Garak had already chosen. “Out of the way of doors. I can adjust those lights at the back. If we were here—” He took Garak by the waist and manhandled him nearer the wall, then glancing at the tripod about six steps down the hall, “The light would be brighter behind us, so we’d appear as semi-silhouettes, with some colour on us and a bright outline.”

“Are you ready to begin, or do you need a moment?” Garak asked.

“No, no, I’m ready,” Julian said, eyes roaming Garak’s face. He squinted. “Did you put on makeup?”

Garak smiled. “Just a traditional dash of blue for my forehead, is all.”

“Oh, yes.” Julian reached to thumb at the inverted teardrop ridge, nodding. “Very handsome.”

Garak’s eyelids fluttered, breathing out a tiny moan as Julian stroked that spoon shape...

“OH—” Julian snatched his hand back. “Oh, _God_ , I’m sorry! I completely forgot. I just— It seemed so natural, and you were— And then— Garak, no, I should’ve asked first—”

“My dear, my dear, it’s all right, don’t worry,” Garak said, taking both of Julian’s hands. “It was quite the unexpected pleasure.”

Julian breathed a few times. “Are you sure? It’s just so terribly intimate, I thought—”

“Hush, Julian.” Garak set a finger over Julian’s lips. “All is forgiven.” His other hand lifted the remote button, the pressing of which would trigger a photo taken on the padd. “Might I suggest you even repeat the gesture so I can take a picture this time. You rather caught me off-guard.”

Julian smiled a little. He sucked his lower lip, then nodded, and lifted a hand... Slow blinks, eyes locked with Garak’s, he rested his fingertips on Garak’s forehead, slipping down to touch the upper edge of the central ridge...

Garak shut his eyes again, relaxing, head tilting. The click of the remote under his thumb was arrhythmic but without any long pauses between photos.

Julian stroked. “What does it feel like?” he whispered.

Garak let his eyes open, settling on Julian’s, and pupils were as black as outer space. “Like the first, succulent bite of real food... after years of nothing but dry rations,” he groaned, before bowing his head, mouth open as he exhaled. “I can barely... h’h-huuh...”

Julian held Garak’s shoulders now, insides tense with an ache partly sated, partly stoked.

Garak recovered, and drew a breath, chin finally rising. He looked at Julian for a while, then reached to undo his top buttons for him... then a couple more, fingertips spreading the partition wide. _Click, cli-click, click..._

Julian breathed out hot over his own lips, then licked them.

_Click, click..._

Garak’s fingers strayed up, caressing Julian’s throat. Julian shut his eyes and groaned, head back. “Oh, yeah...”

Garak hummed a laugh. “You enjoy that?”

Julian nodded, groaning as he leaned back further and his shoulders touched the wall. “Hmmmmm.”

Garak pressed the clicker over and over, shoes skimming forward to butt against Julian’s toes. Their bodies drew closer, middles almost touching, then pressing. Julian felt Garak’s inhale swell softly against him.

Julian murmured in pleasure, eyes opening, hands moving to hold Garak’s neck ridges, knowing Garak would see his gaze was _dark_ , but wouldn’t be able to tell it was from genuine desire, not just the low lighting.

“Hmmm, Garak,” Julian breathed, squirming a little in the stockier’s man’s grip. “Won’t you kiss me?”

Garak’s eyes widened, set on Julian’s mouth. His lips parted. Then he chuckled, gaze flicked away. “You play a dangerous game, doctor. You could’ve had me fooled for a moment there.”

“Ohhh, but I’m not playing,” Julian teased, while hoping Garak still thought he was. “I want you to hold me and touch me _all_ over.” He leaned in with his head tilted, a drone of lust in his voice as he groaned into Garak’s ridged ear, “Make love to me, Elim.”

Garak pressed his forehead into Julian’s hair, purring low. “Right here, my dear?”

“Yes.” _Click-click-clickclick—_ Julian shivered, feeling Garak’s free hand slide up under his shirt, hot palm on hotter skin. “Mmm. Ohh, _yes_. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“You wouldn’t believe how much.” Garak kissed his cheek. _Click._

Julian fell back, astonished. “Garak! You – really kissed me.”

Garak dipped his head but his eyes remained on Julian’s. “But when you tease me so, my dear, it’s so hard to resist...” He smiled reassuringly. “All for the picture, doctor. That’s all.”

Julian pulled Garak closer, so they were flush to the wall. _Clickclickclickclickclick—_

A breath passed between them, humid. Noses touching. Julian smiled, a croaky little groan flying out from the back of his throat.

“Act aside,” Julian murmured, “what we’re doing is so frightfully naughty, Garak.”

“Is it?”

Julian held Garak’s collar, nodding slowly, nudging his nose close enough to taste the wine on his breath. “Someone might find us. A-Anhd,” he shivered, “I almost...? I almost want someone to.”

Garak hummed interestedly, clicking away and teasing a kiss, eyes lowered. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Julian admitted. “But.” He relaxed, giving himself over to honesty. “All month people have been looking at us. And once I realised what they were looking at – I maybe should’ve felt upset, or scared, or violated.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Aaah, a little,” Julian confessed, forehead against Garak’s. “But I like the idea. Don’t you? Maybe we’re not really a couple but it’s... exciting to pretend. To _show off_ being like this together. Isn’t it? This is – exciting.”

_Click click click click click click..._

He felt Garak’s hand stroke down his thigh, and he shuddered, hips rolling a little.

“Most inspiring,” Garak agreed, lips dragging Julian’s flushed jaw. “It seems you really would leap at any opportunity to take the spotlight, doctor.”

“Not _any_ ,” Julian argued. He grinned at Garak, then looked at his pretty lips. “But this is an especially fun opportunity.”

Julian watched as Garak moved about his body, touching his waist, his thigh, his hip, his inner wrist. He held Julian’s hands between their chest and kissed his fingers one by one, and Julian let himself moan, his truth protected by the concept of the game. But his soul was dancing higher with every kiss, and the craving inside him grew louder and louder and more savage, making him pulsate with urges he did his best to squash, pulling himself back with every nudge closer.

“W-What if—” Julian stopped still, one hand on Garak’s chest, the other in his sleek black hair, stroking twice. _Clickclickclick_. “Garak— Elim? What if. What if we really kissed?”

Garak looked at him carefully. “Are you play-acting still? You must be clear with me, dear doctor, I wouldn’t want to overstep.”

Julian shrugged a shoulder. “I’m... I... don’t know. I don’t know.” He shut his eyes tight and inclined his head, forehead against Garak’s ridged chin. _Clickclick-click._ Julian breathed in and rose again, asking directly, eyes searching Garak’s, “Do you think we could try it, at least?”

A soft smile stretched across Garak’s mouth, making his eyes sparkle. “Are you entirely certain that’s what you truly want?”

Julian nodded, easing closer, eyes half-closed, a little breath of want escaping him. “I-I-I just want to... try it. A little bit...?”

Garak cupped his cheek, so close, so very close. “Try it as much as you like,” he said, and set his lips to Julian’s.

Julian’s body melted low, and he almost dropped away, but Garak pressed him to the wall and deepened the kiss with some ferocity, and Julian _moaned_ , mouth open, hands weakly scrunching through Garak’s hair. Garak felt his erection, surely. “Oh,” Julian murmured. “Oh. Mm. Mm.” Kissing, kissing, twisting and turning and pushing. “Mm, mmnn.”

Lips parted in a wet, breathy slip, and Julian moaned on each free-gliding breath, dazed, _aroused_ , heart beating in his ears. “Garak,” he whispered. “Garak, Ghaahhmmm.” He slumped with his head back against the wall, secured by Garak’s single hand on his waist.

Julian took a few breaths, smiling, sizzling with heat. “Garak?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Y-You didn’t take any pictures.”

Garak hummed. “No, I didn’t; very well observed. Must have... hm, slipped my mind. Did you like it?” he whispered, lips tracing Julian’s exposed neck. “My kisses?”

Julian nodded frantically. “You hh... have to take pictures, Garak, you’re missing the best stuff.” Julian’s hand slid down Garak’s arm, fingers entwining, taking the clicker from him. “Am I really so distracting?” Julian asked, with a charming grin.

Garak’s eyes were on Julian’s lips, and he didn’t answer.

“Julian,” Garak said, carefully, a note of wariness in his voice. “Do you want me to touch you? Relieve your arousal. I can, if you’d allow me. We can go somewhere with absolute privacy.”

Julian whimpered, feeling heat burning his eyes as it rose from his cheeks. “Ohh, yes,” he urged, thumb clicking the remote frantically. “God, _hhhyes_ , talk to me like _that_.”

Garak’s breath hitched. “Talk?”

Julian nodded. “Pretend you want me.”

“Pret...” Garak swallowed. “Is that idea exciting to you? Imagining I feel lust for you.”

Julian cried out, trying to nod but just shaking.

“What if I said I was in love with you, doctor?” Garak asked, quietly. “Does that thrill you?”

Julian was out of his mind with pleasure now. _Clickclickclickclickclickclick—_ “Oh, don’t stop. Don’t stop. Whisper to me. Closer-closer-closer.” He hugged Garak tight, humming and biting his own lust-thick lip, his body pressed beautifully between the wall and the other man. “Pretend with me. _Bury_ me in lies, Garak, please...!”

Garak didn’t. He rested his forehead on Julian’s throat. _Click_.

“Elim,” Julian begged. “Tell me again?” He smiled, then laughed. “Ugh, it’s just so _exhilarating_ to hear.”

Garak was silent. He took a breath, and pulled away, his expression smiley but not as amorous as Julian had imagined. “I think we have enough photos, doctor,” he said. “Perhaps it’s time we parted ways.”

Julian’s smile fell. “Really?”

Garak gave Julian’s hand a kiss and stepped back, freeing Julian from the wall.

“But—” Julian took Garak’s arm. “We need to at least choose the best photos. Come onnn,” he urged, swaying, pushing at Garak’s chest. “We’ll go to my place.”

Garak glanced aside, unsure.

“What?” Julian cocked his head. “You’re hesitating – what’s the matter?”

Garak cleared his throat and straightened his tunic. “May I have your word that you won’t flirt with me any longer?”

Julian stood straighter, gathering up his wits and taking a refreshing breath. “Oh,” he said, realising. Maybe he’d gone too far. A sad grey feeling spread like dirty oil across the flame inside him, smothered it in cold smoke, then killed it completely. “Alright. You have my word.”

He sobered quickly, and his erection flagged and faded within a minute as they packed up the tripod and made their quiet way back to the turbolift.

The lift moved, and Julian was still. He couldn’t even look at Garak.

Garak didn’t _like_ it. He didn’t like touching like that, or playing, or... any of it? He liked it before, didn’t he? Which meant Julian had pushed too hard. The kiss was the big mistake, he was certain.

“I’m sorry—” Julian turned desperately to Garak, whose scaled ridges shone in the turbolift light. “If I offended you... hurt you in any way, Garak, you have my sincere apologies.”

Garak took a breath, no doubt to say it was no trouble, it was nothing to do with Bashir – but then he exhaled, slumped a little, and said, so quietly, “Thank you, my friend. That means a great deal to me.”

Julian wrapped his arms around himself, feeling cold now. “Can I—” He glanced over. “What did I do wrong?”

Garak smiled at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, doctor.”

And there was the lie, the one Julian thought he wouldn’t hear. His heart sank.

“The fact, simply put,” Garak said, “is that we were flirting for the picture, and we’ve taken that picture, so there really is no need to continue the act.”

Julian felt a tingle relief. “Oh. Right.” He managed to smile. “I thought I’d upset you.”

“No, no,” Garak said. “We must be clear-cut about these things, that’s all. If we carried on teasing each other late into the night I’m certain it would only complicate our friendship. And as you know, our lunches together are too precious to be worth jeopardising for any reason.”

Julian nodded. “You’re right.” He looked over. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? About my. Um.” He glanced down. “Overexcitement.”

Garak chuckled. “I suspect there might be a few photos we should take out of the running, if that’s an issue you’d prefer to keep secret.”

Julian laughed, running a hand through his messed-up hair. The turbolift opened, and Julian led the way to his own quarters, still prickling with sense memories of being touched and kissed and _held_...

They got inside, and Julian first went to the bathroom. He came out to find Garak settling on the couch with a red leaf tea in hand, and the first of the photographs blown up big on the wall console that was usually hidden behind artwork.

“Oh, not bad,” Julian said, sitting beside Garak with some Raktajino. “You were right, the lighting does work wonders on that shirt.”

“Of course I was right,” Garak said.

Julian sipped his coffee and smiled.

Slowly, they made their way through the photos, looking at the big screen but using the handheld padd as a touchscreen. They kept a lot of the earliest photos in the running, but swiped away more and more as they got further into the collection. Soon Garak was removing each and every single one, purely because Julian’s erection was a prominent feature, as the lights from behind caught it in perfect relief.

“Didn’t I say,” Garak uttered, “what happens when you’re excited. You are quite a bit larger than the average Human.”

Julian thumped Garak’s side with his own. “You said no flirting.”

“Merely making an observation, doctor.”

“Well, make it quietly.”

“I suspect if I whispered it might be worse.”

Julian giggled, hiding his nose in his coffee. “Just shush.”

Garak carried on sorting pictures, but couldn’t make up his mind on the later images, where Julian’s front was hidden against Garak’s, so he was not indecent, but had his head thrown back in ecstasy, which, to Julian, made it more erotic.

Julian kept blushing, sneaking glances Garak’s way.

“Keep in mind,” Garak said, “the image we choose would be seen by the entire station.”

“Oh, in that case,” Julian said, snatching the padd and swiping madly right up to the end. He paused on the last one, however. In it, Garak’s forehead rested on Julian’s throat, their bodies close, but their energy was subdued. It just looked like a hug. A nice, sensual hug, even though Julian had felt a mad concoction of emotions as it happened.

Julian showed Garak. “Yes or no?”

“Keep it for now,” Garak said, taking the padd and starting over through the album.

They combed through once again, more discerning this time.

“Wait, bring that back!” Julian cried, after Garak swiped away a perfectly good one. “What’s wrong with that? Gazing into each other’s eyes is romantic.”

“There’s more to think about than just how it looks, doctor,” Garak said. “We must also consider how it feels.”

“And?”

“It it makes me feel rather uncomfortable when my middle pokes out like that.”

Julian lowered his coffee. “You think you look pudgy?”

“Aren’t I?”

Julian pff’d. “Medically, I’d say you could be in better shape. Personally, though, I think you look lovely just as you are. I don’t think anyone would notice a pokey-out middle except you.”

“And thank goodness I get to decide which photos to keep, therefore,” Garak said.

“Can’t argue with that,” Julian supposed. He shoved Garak’s shoulder with his own. “Your tummy’s so very _cute_ , though.”

“Flirting, doctor,” Garak warned.

“Oh, let me have that one.”

Garak glanced at him, eyes sparkling. “I will allow it.”

Julian grinned, and his eyes fell back to the padd.

It took them half an hour total, but eventually they’d narrowed down the choices to two images: an innocent one: standing close together, Garak fingering open Julian’s shirt collar, and the more sultry one: Garak’s forehead on Julian’s throat, bodies entwined.

“I suppose we ought to acknowledge,” Julian said, “that regardless of which one we submit, and regardless of who everyone thinks took it, the fact we’d be submitting _either_ of these would essentially broadcast to people that we are actually an item. We’ll never be able to deny it after this.”

Garak swirled the last of his tea around his teacup.

“It might put one or both of us in danger, you realise,” Julian went on. “Even if we’re not really involved, any enemy who _thinks_ we’re romantic would choose one of us as a target to hurt the other.”

“My dear,” Garak said with a smile. “I don’t think it matters if we’re truly, mutually in love. If an enemy wanted to find the one person on the station I care most about, or who cares most about me, it would still be you. The nature of the relationship makes no difference at all.”

Julian gazed at him softly. “Not much we can do about that, then.”

“Nothing at all, I’d wager.”

Julian looked at the two images side-by-side. “Could be a hoot,” he said with a shrug. “Submitting the one with the hug. I mean, if we’re coming out like this, might as well go for it.”

“A hug is ambiguous enough that people would still be left guessing. Not as decisive as a kiss on the lips.”

“True.”

Julian glanced at Garak, then decided. “Let’s submit one each. Let the voters decide. And then Quark’ll do whatever it is he’s going to do to skew the results. But at least there’s two chances of winning, then.”

Garak took the hand Julian offered, shook it, then squeezed before letting go.

“And whoever wins,” Garak said, “gets to choose where we have our date in the holosuite.”

“Date?” Julian smiled.

Garak smiled back, tilted his head playfully, but said nothing more.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  



	4. Who Wins?

Technically—

Okay, not technically...

 _Definitely_ , DS9’s Chief Medical Officer was supposed to be in the Infirmary until his shift ended. But nobody was there and Julian was bored, so he left Nurse Jabara halfway through their shift overlap and hurried up to Ops to see his friends. He pranced in, greeting everyone in turn as he swept around the room, leaning on consoles, forwards, then backwards, squeezing people’s shoulders and asking about the latest gossip.

“You know,” Jadzia said teasingly, “you’ve just saved us all a trip.”

Julian looked at her curiously, then at Kira, who was also smirking. “I have?”

“You have, doctor,” Sisko said, strutting out from his office and trotting down the stairs, a gleam in his eyes. “I believe we’re expected in Quark’s at eighteen-hundred.”

“Oh, would you look at that,” Jadzia chirped, as a bleeping alarm went off nearby. She pressed a button to silence it. “That’s our cue. Kira? You ready?”

Kira gazed at Julian, still smirking, as she left her console and marched up the metal steps. “So ready.”

“Benjamin?” Jadzia offered a crooked arm, and Captain Sisko slipped his own arm through it, wearing the kind of devilish smile that made Julian mentally double-check he had his affairs in order and had updated his last will and testament.

“Come on,” Kira said, taking Julian by the arm and dragging him easily towards the turbolift. “Chief, you coming?”

“What, _now_?” Miles looked disgruntled. “Who’s looking after Ops?”

Worf sighed. “I will assume station command. I will alert you if anything happens.”

“Thanks, babe,” Jadzia uttered, leaning to kiss Worf as she and the Captain passed. “I’ll let you know who wins.”

“You had better,” Worf said with a frown and a slight sneer. “And—” he glanced at his wife, “I hope you win.”

Jadzia gave him a bright smile, then took Julian’s other arm and helped Kira steer him to the lift.

“Now look—” Julian gave his required protests, “someone had better tell me what’s going on, right now.”

“Come on, doctor,” Sisko said, standing tall in the lift as Dax, Kira, and Julian crowded beside him, then all shuffled up to let O’Brien squish in with them. “We all know you’ve known about Quark’s little game from the start. The jig, as they say, is up.”

So Sisko really _did_ think Julian was in on this. How bizarre.

“Yes, well,” Julian said, tentatively, as Kira requested the Promenade and the lift began to move, “I thought it best if I pretended I didn’t know what was going on.”

“Oh, believe me,” Kira uttered, “I think we’d _all_ be better off not knowing certain things about you.”

Julian flushed hot, but acted cool. “What’s that supposed to mean, Major?”

“Nothing, Julian,” Miles grumbled. “They’re just messing you about.”

Julian gave his friend a kind look. “Good of you to stick up for me.”

Kira snorted, hand over her mouth to hide a smile. Miles looked prickly all of a sudden. Even Sisko smirked.

Julian’s lips parted. “You lot are all getting lumps of coal for your birthdays,” he said, facing forward and leaning away from the rushing walls as the lift passed.

The crew tugged him down the Promenade towards Quark’s, and Julian noted that the Promenade was remarkably empty for this time of the evening. Quark’s, however, was beyond packed: crowds of people spilled from every entrance, chattering loudly, trying to reach the drinks they’d ordered.

“Pardon me,” the Captain said, and people looked back, hurriedly edging away to let Sisko and the others through. Julian went with them, amazed that pretty much the entire station really _had_ turned up for the conclusion of Quark’s competition. Had all these people entered and submitted a picture? Julian had seen about three hundred entries jumping around on Quark’s network channel but this was more like _five_ hundred people. There wasn’t a space available.

Yet, Sisko’s presence seemed to clear a space, and Julian was glad about that, as he was no longer squashed on all sides. He stood with his friends on the raised platform near the dabo table, looking around—

“Garak!” Julian exclaimed, genuinely surprised to see him. “What in God’s name are you doing here? I thought you hated crowds.”

“Oh, I do,” Garak said, sidling up to Julian. He looked carefully at the senior officers in case one of them might shoo him away, but of course they didn’t, and smiled at him instead. “For this occasion, however, I thought it best to see what the fuss was all about. And quite a fuss, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” Julian said. He stood on tiptoes, trying to see where Quark was. “I wonder what’s going on?”

Garak gave him a fond smile. “As do I. Must be something very exciting, to draw in such a diverse crowd. I even saw young Mr. Sisko and his friend Nog hanging around upstairs. Do you see that Tiberian Cave Bat hanging from the railing?”

“Yes?”

“Five minutes ago that was Odo.”

Julian grinned. He and Elim shared a soft look, then hid their growing excitement by looking away in haste.

“Alright, alright!” Quark’s voice cut through the babble, his long-coated form lumbering up onto the bartop, hands out to subdue the crowd. “If I could have your attention please!”

Hundreds of people took a few seconds to settle, but when they did, the silence seemed to sing.

“Alright,” Quark said again, yanking on his waistcoat to tidy it. “First order of business! Welcome, all. Thank you for coming tonight, thank you for bringing your friends, and most of all, _thank_ you for ordering so many drinks.”

A rumble of laughter blurred through the crowd, and a small jostle from a stranger made Julian’s shoulder nudge Garak’s. They shared another look, then turned to listen again, smiling.

Quark went on, “Eighteen-hundred hours today marked the end of the competition you’ve all so eagerly dedicated your month to winning... or at least participating in.

“Of course, my biggest thanks,” Quark said, hand on his heart, “goes out to the pair whose faces... and everything else, besides – have become well-known and well-loved around here throughout this month. Ladies, gentlemen, and all neutral or androgynous peoples, please give a huge round of applause for Dr. Julian Bashir and his _beloved_ Cardassian tailor, Mr. Garak!” With a gesture, he threw everyone’s attention their way.

Julian found himself grinning, even though he was shy and burning hot from head to toe. He looked at Garak and saw him gulping, tense, but one reassuring touch on his lower back and Garak was at ease, looking at Julian with softness in his eyes.

Even Kira and Sisko and Dax were applauding, watching them with big smiles on their faces.

“Their chemistry has paved the way for—” Quark looked down, muttered something to his brother Rom, then looked up, announcing, “five hundred! and thirty- _seven_ entries! Oh—” He clutched his chest. “All that latinum.”

A laugh, quickly fading...

“Now,” Quark said, sweeping his hands...

Behind him rose a draped metallic sheet, lifted on a pulley as Rom and another Ferengi lifted it all the way up until it was flush with the glowing ceiling above the bar. Another sheet toppled down from the balcony, and in a flash, both low-tech screens were coloured boldly with projected images.

Julian’s toes curled. That was _him_ up there, face frozen in a grin as Garak gestured cheerfully over the Replimat table.

“You submitted your photos,” Quark said. “You voted on everyone else’s. And we at Quark’s have considered the votes, but we also considered such things as originality, artistic license, and – well, just how darn romantic the picture looks. You know why? Because you crazy idiots gave _this_ piece of garbage the highest vote.”

On the projectors came the image Quark described: Julian laughing with his mouth open, food half-chewed, nostrils flared, while opposite him Garak was halfway through a perfectly normal sentence – but his eyes only showed the whites, his jaw looked like it was dislocated, and altogether the sight was uncomfortably awkward. There had surely never been a more unflattering photo taken of anyone, ever. The room was roaring with laughter. Julian covered his cheeks, humming in amused embarrassment. Garak chuckled, unfazed.

“Maybe it is romantic,” Quark mused, “that two people can sit down opposite someone who looks like that and still find something worthy of coming back to, day after day, week after week.”

Soon the laughter settled, and Quark hit a button to get to the next slides in his presentation. They started changing, next, next, next, a couple each second.

“I’ve compiled the best,” Quark said, “And I’ve compiled the worst. The worst, frankly, are not all that bad.” Behind him, image after image came by, each barely any different from the last so the view didn’t flash. Julian on the left, Garak on the right. Eating. Talking. Lit in pink and blue from the Replimat. After about ninety quickfire images, the lighting changed: they were at Quark’s now. Another seventy-six, and the angle changed: Julian was on the right and Garak was on the left. They were back at the Replimat, then at Quarks again, their tables different each time. Garak’s outfits alternated but Julian always wore his Starfleet uniform.

“And,” Quark added, “there’s a few that stand out, sure.”

These ‘eating together’ pictures started to linger for longer: these ones looked more elegant, more colourful; whoever took them had worked hard to get a good angle, waiting for the right lighting, or had set their camera focus just right. There were shots of their hands near each other, of Julian smiling, or Garak stealing something from his plate, or all of those at once.

“Then, as we all know—” Quark chuckled. “There were plenty of saucy, verrry artistic images Odo tells me I’m not allowed to show publicly. But!” he added, as people groaned, “Those are still available on Quark’s network channel; one slip of latinum gets you a month’s access. You must be over the age of consent in your species to subscribe. Buy a year’s access and you get priority commenter privileges!”

A mixed-up murmur of interest and disinterest flooded the bar.

“There’s plenty of these things, too,” Quark said, gradually showing a collection of strange and hilarious photo-manipulations and collages that soon had Julian clutching his stomach with laughter, while beside him Garak stood wheezing and shaking his head, and the other senior officers applauded or leaned on each other for stability.

One featured Garak’s surprised expression pasted over a photo of an Earth lizard with its fins flared, the lizard’s back ridden by a brown rabbit, who had Julian’s smuggest face stuck just under the rabbit’s perky ears.

The one depicting himself and Garak as colliding star systems was kind of epic, if terrifying.

The room practically screamed as they saw a picture of DS9’s docking clamps labelled _Busher_ , and the Defiant mid-docking, labelled _Grak_.

Julian was having trouble breathing at this point. Kira had tears streaming down her face. Miles looked grumpy, but managed the tiniest twitch of a smirk.

And, yes, it turned out Julian Bashir did look rather pretty as a girl. He nodded approvingly at the artwork, accidentally catching the Major’s eye and blushing. Garak bumbled through a laugh, but Julian got the impression he enjoyed it more than he let on. Left-leaning, indeed.

“None of those are winners, either, I’m sorry to say,” Quark chuckled, hands up. “Rules are rules. Their creators broke them for the sake of a good laugh, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But now we’re getting to the higher-ranking submissions. This one... let’s see.” He took a padd from his brother and checked the information on it. “Ah yes! This next one is submitted by our Chief of Operations, Mr. Miles O’Brien.”

Julian coughed a laugh, eyes shooting to his friend, as Sisko clapped the man on the back. Keiko had tiptoed up to Miles, holding Molly in her arms, and she did look proud, even as Miles refused to look at Julian out of pure sheepishness.

There it was: Miles O’Brien’s photo came up. In it, Julian was comfortably settled on that saggy pink couch, arm around Garak, looking at him hopefully. Garak peered back, nursing his Scotch, lips parted just a fraction. His eyes said ‘ _I’d do anything for you, my dear_ ’. Julian’s stomach flipped right over. He’d lived through that moment and he hadn’t even registered the vulnerability in Garak’s posture as he leant back into Julian’s arm and let him squeeze.

Julian felt a pat and rub on the shoulder from Dax, but he swayed with the force, too stunned to react.

Rom’s mumble came up from behind the bar, “Uuuuuh, that one was disqualified.”

Quark nodded, rolling his eyes. “So it was. Nice photo, Chief, but it was taken in someone’s quarters, and unless those quarters double as a harem, that’s not a public place. So. Disqualified.”

Miles spluttered. “But! Nobody told me—!”

Keiko cringed, stroking his back. “Mmmmaybe I should’ve read the rules instead of working off Jake and Nog’s hearsay.”

Miles chuckled. He hugged his wife with their daughter held between them, and let their failure be forgotten. Julian heard the edge of a whisper, “How about I treat you to dinner anyway.”

“This next one,” Quark sighed, “would never have made the finalist list, were it not for the fact that it was submitted as a joint effort by my own nephew Nog, and Jake Sisko, the son of the Captain, and...” another sigh, “it somehow garnered well over a hundred-fifty votes.” He rolled his eyes, and changed the slide. “Popularity does wonders in popularity contests, so it seems.”

Over the photo of Garak handing Julian a data rod, an arrow was drawn, and the image was captioned in big handwritten letters: _HE’S GIVING HIM HIS ROD!!!_

Julian palmed his forehead. Chuckles warmed the crowded bar, but Sisko gave an audible harrumph among it all. Dax snorted Raktajino out her nose.

Garak shot Julian a twinkly-eyed look at that one. Julian smiled back, biting his lower lip until Garak looked away.

Next up was clearly Jadzia’s entry: she stood behind Garak and Julian as they ate at the Replimat – she was winking, grinning, and pushing her fingertips and thumbs together to make a symbolic heart-shape. The crowd saw her photo and wolf-whistled and cheered a little, and Julian wasn’t even sure if the cheers were for Jadzia or for himself and Garak. He applauded too, just in case they were for Dax.

“You got so close and neither of us sensed a whisper,” Garak marvelled. “My, my, Lieutenant, you’d make quite the spy.”

Julian beamed, first at Dax, then at Garak.

The following photo was one of Keiko’s, an image that shocked Julian with nostalgia. He was four years younger, just free of being baby-faced – and he stood by the cargo bay doors with a tricorder in hand, gazing across the botanical bay the day it was constructed. His past self’s eyes lingered on Garak, who knelt and helped Keiko bury vegetables in raised planters.

“It _does_ look like longing,” Keiko muttered, as the rest of the crowd went _awwww_. “I’m not seeing things.”

“That’s just what his face looks like when he’s switched off, love,” Miles countered. “He was probably worn out.”

Julian kept his eyes on Miles and Keiko, heart squeezing in sudden insecurity. Had he really been looking at Garak like that all this time? Did people see it as _longing_? He remembered that day as clearly as he remembered yesterday, and while he hadn’t felt something he would’ve labelled as ‘longing’, there had been... a certain desire. He’d thought Garak was sweet for helping. A nurturer, good with plants. Kind enough that Keiko liked him. Handsome, even in that light...

Maybe it _was_ longing. Julian looked at Garak now, and the tight, uncertain feeling inside him turned to something more open, aching, wide and tender in the pit of his belly. He didn’t squash it down this time, nor question it, not excuse it away and call it something else. He let it happen, intending to pay attention to how it felt.

Yeah, he’d felt this before.

He’d felt this a thousand times. When he breathed Garak’s scent; when their hands touched; when Garak made him laugh, or did something unapologetically devious; when Garak lied without effort, only to let Julian peel back the truth over time, so very beautifully...

Julian studied again the images on the screen, pictures of him strolling the Promenade shoulder-to-shoulder with Garak, of them sharing Delavian chocolates secretively in the tailor’s shop just before closing time, of Garak’s hand on Julian’s back, or fingers behind his ear, knuckles on his hip. Garak had caught him around the waist when Rom had collided with Julian on the upstairs level of the bar. Julian had helped Garak clean his tunic when Morn had knocked a drink down his front. Julian was always smiling, eyes low, or set on his friend. His gaze seemed to sparkle. It was not a trick of the light, he realised now: that was actually what his eyes did when he looked at Garak.

Julian began to fret. All these people were seeing something real. This wasn’t a game at all. Julian looked desperately at Garak, sucking in a breath to say something, but what the hell could he say?! _Do you think it’s possible that I could be in love with you?_

He wasn’t sure he could say it.

So he started looking at Garak in the pictures, curious to see if the feeling was mutual.

It only took three pictures to see Garak was in an even worse state than Julian, and Julian had somehow remained oblivious all this time. It went beyond that vulnerable moment on the O’Brien’s couch; Garak _always_ looked at Julian with care and thought, his posture always relaxed, leaning in, hands open, smiling easily. There was no tension in him.

_He trusts me._

Julian’s heart was pounding. After so many years preaching to Julian about trusting no-one, and praising a lack of trust, Garak had betrayed his own rules. He’d grown soft in Julian’s presence. He kept back infinite secrets but he lay every truth bare at the same time, and Julian knew there was nobody in the universe who knew more about Elim Garak than himself. Julian was trusted by a man who trusted no-one.

To say that trust could be equated with romantic love was an illogical leap to make – but where was logic, now? Logic failed to make sense of this. The entire process of genuinely falling in love, Julian knew, could not be confined by the cerebral rules of intellect – love was an instinctive, intuitive motion. Garak wouldn’t have been able to help it, just as—

Just as Julian hadn’t been able to stop himself, either.

The one logical thought Julian had only pointed in favour, not against: after losing the constant chemical stimulation provided by his cranial implant, Garak sought an endorphin high in any manner available to him. And he’d chosen Julian. Because Julian made him _happy_.

Julian forgot the images on screen for a while, just gazing at Garak.

_Elim, are you in love with me?_

The words had come tumbling from Garak’s mouth only a night previously. He’d said it, he’d confessed love. But it was part of the act, wasn’t it? It was just for the photo. It wasn’t real. None of it had been real.

But that kiss...

The simple fact that Garak hadn’t taken a photo as they kissed, it meant... Oh God.

It meant...

The kiss wasn’t part of the act. Nor was the love confession.

They were real.

“And now, on to the _best_ ones,” Quark said boldly, as people applauded the last pictures Julian had missed. “This one was submitted by none other than commander of this station, Captain Benjamin Sisko!”

A small utterance of awe went through the crowd, followed by a sweet coo of a hundred people, delighted when they saw the photo Sisko had taken in the wardroom. Garak stood behind Julian, hands on his shoulders, looking down into his eyes as Julian looked up, seated at the meeting table. The lights were dim and diffused, the moment was quiet, and the photo was framed distantly and off-centre in such a way that it showed the truth of the moment: Julian and Elim were two souls alone in an empty world, not in a lonely way, but in a way that showed they had the support of each other. Julian had forgotten Sisko was in the room at the time, and Sisko had captured the sentiment of privacy perfectly.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Quark looked back at it, smiling contentedly. “How could it get better than that, you may ask. Well, I have just a few pictures remaining. This next one was a late entry, and thus garnered only a few votes on the network, but of the votes it did receive, one _hundred_ percent of them were upvotes. That makes it the only one in this competition not to have a downvote. Plus... look at it. Isn’t that gorgeous? Taken right here at Quark’s bar.”

In the picture, the red lights of the bar were cast across Garak’s grey skin, patterned as they filtered through one of the room dividers, giving his face depth and delicacy. He sat pressed to Julian’s side in their private booth, their dinners shared between them, shoulders touching, Julian gazing at Garak with softened, darkened eyes, head tilted, as Garak held his chin.

In reality, Garak had only touched him for a split-second, wiping a drip of pasta sauce from his lip, but the effect in the photo made that one heartbeat last a lifetime. It was a glorious lifetime, and all of it was breathless.

Staring at the screen, and at Quark, Julian felt himself melting into Garak’s warm side, quite helplessly. Garak pressed back, acknowledging the vulnerability of the moment.

Yes, the photo took the touch out of context. But Julian knew now, as he was sure Garak knew, that the essence of intimacy and love captured in that one frame was exactly the same in real life as the fiction presented to the crowds.

“That one was mine,” Kira whispered, leaning close to Jadzia. Julian’s eyes widened, suppressing a chuckle of surprise.

Jadzia grinned, and held out a hand for Kira to slap and hold. “Holosuite dinner on me, then. Good _job_.”

Kira looked delighted. “Pure chance,” she said. “Right place, right time.” She glanced back to give Julian a friendly wink.

“Down to our final three,” Quark said, as people applauded Kira’s picture without knowing it was Kira’s. “First... Hm. My apologies, Odo... Where are you? Oh, there you are.” The bat flapped around, then returned to hang on the barrier, making a few people shriek. Quark tutted. “I know I told you you’d win, but that was before I saw the real winner. That said...”

People nearly lost their _minds_ when they saw Garak and Bashir holding hands in the turbolift. Maybe, like Julian, they were freaking out about the fact there were cameras in there. Otherwise – also like Julian – they were amazed at the absolute, unquestionable affection of that gesture, as hand-holding was something understood by countless cultures in innumerable corners of the universe. Julian’s tipped-down head and shy, tiny smile made it romantic. It just _did_. There was something about that sort of shyness that showed how much he adored being touched by Garak. Garak, too, seemed so taken by the gesture, lips parted, eyeridges rising like he was in the midst of a silent sigh of pleasure.

Julian felt heat under his skin as Sisko turned his head and gave his Chief Medical Officer a curious look. Miles peered over too – which was infinitely worse. Julian’s friend and superior were both questioning how they’d been interpreting Julian’s relationship with a Cardassian spy. Now they were really wondering... what else did Julian and Garak share besides friendship? Julian could see the calculations in their eyes.

“Now, folks,” Quark said, as people applauded Odo for his tenacity, “when I tell you this one _ought_ to be a clear winner, I mean it. But it’s only coming in second. Prepare yourselves, people. Are you ready?” He pointed at a Bolian. “You’re not ready. You ready?” He pointed at Morn. “You’re never ready.” He swiped his hands. “None of you are ready. Let’s go for it anyway. Here it is. In second place...!”

Julian’s heart leapt as he saw exactly what he’d expected to see.

There was the picture he and Garak had taken the other night. Drenched in blue, highlighted with tiny pinpoints of rainbow lights that glazed Julian’s shirt and shone in his eyes, glossy on Garak’s straight black hair; they embraced, Julian’s back to the wall, Garak’s forehead to Julian’s throat.

The crowds were whispering now, muttering, murmuring, turning to each other and realising, five-hundred-fold, that this wasn’t a game. There had never been any competition.

This was a coming out party, and they’d all been invited.

Julian and Garak had won.

Julian burned as he felt eyes on him. The crowds weren’t his concern; it was Kira’s parted lips, Dax’s grin – it was Miles’ flabbergasted confusion, Keiko’s knowing nod, Sisko’s hum of thought. They were realising things about Julian that Julian had only just figured out for himself.

He should have been mortified. But he wasn’t. Far from it, in fact, as Garak had been right – oh, how he loved the spotlight. Especially when there was someone he loved right there to share it with him. Garak’s warm hand rested in the small of Julian’s back, sliding up, then back down. Julian slung a hand low, open, and waited for Garak to lower his own hand – and when he did, Julian tangled their fingers. Heart racing.

“And in first place—”

Julian looked up, stung by anticipation: there was another image on its way. Julian had submitted the hug picture, so... this had to be Garak’s entry, the one where he undid Julian’s shirt collar. But even now, having seen everything that came before, there was no _way_ that would be the winning entry. No way.

So what was next?

If Julian and Garak hadn’t won... who the hell did?

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  



	5. Exactly What It Looks Like

Several moments passed, and during those moments, Julian _didn’t get it_. He saw his face projected ahead on the screen, a brown head and tousled black hair and intrigued hazel-green eyes, staring ahead. Garak stood next to him, also staring, starting to smile. The image was framed to fit them, and only them. It was like looking into a mirror, if the mirror was all the way across the bar, also being looked at by five hundred people.

He wondered if he was having an out-of-body experience, or a weird dream.

Where was the winning picture, exactly?

How was Julian standing next to Garak in a crowded bar more romantic than the five hundred other pictures they’d just seen? Julian saw his own face start to frown in consternation. Garak, on the other hand, was smiling wider and wider.

Julian Bashir, a superhuman with a superfast brain, only realised now, with a jolt, that what he was looking at was a live video feed. There was a camera aimed at him from somewhere ahead. They used to do this on Earth, didn’t they? At ball games and other sporting events. _A kiss cam_ , his superhuman brain helpfully supplied, which was actually not that helpful.

“My dear,” Garak murmured on Julian’s right, looking down at their joined hands.

Julian glanced at him, then back at the screen. The video had a one-second delay, so he saw himself look at Garak, then away.

Baffled by all this, he finally looked at Garak and kept his eyes there. “Garak, what’s going on,” he said quietly.

Garak gave him a devious, sparkly-eyed look, the kind Julian had come to dread, because it meant something very lovely was on its way and Julian would have to figure out how to react.

Garak turned to face Julian, and took his other hand too. Julian was swept up in the tenderness of the touch and forgot about one thousand eyes, all his friends and other assorted onlookers paying them all their attention. He faced Garak and waited for him to speak.

Garak inched closer, nose nudging towards Julian... but he didn’t say a word.

All this lead-up, all this obvious scheming and conniving, and he was just as afraid as Julian was. Barely a wisp of air passed Garak’s lips, but his question was still clear.

_May I kiss you, my dear?_

Julian sank with a sigh, a flash of a grin tugging his mouth open. He pushed his body close, skin fluttering all over as Garak let go of his hands to take him around his back, clutching him, noses almost touching.

Now he registered the room was thumping, brash with cheers and chanting, stomping feet and clapping hands punctuated by whistles of encouragement. Nobody said “ _Kiss him_ ,” but that was all Julian heard.

Garak nuzzled a little closer, but didn’t make contact. He wanted Julian to decide.

Julian didn’t need to. He shut his eyes and eased himself against Garak, lips parted, breath rushing out in his relief. Garak tilted his head immediately, hands rising with intense pressure up Julian’s back to sink deep into his hair, a tongue-tip breaching his lips, a gasp stolen from between them.

At first the pressure of the kiss was nothing but bold; determined as a rock, unwavering, unmoving. But then Garak twisted his head to the other side and Julian was taken along for the ride, scorched as joyous molten lava surged inside him. He was saved from having to figure out what to do with his hands, as they only fit on Garak’s waist and Garak was completely in control of Julian’s body.

But then the push eased to a pulse, and Julian felt Garak relaxing, kissing in little nudges, nose squashed against Julian’s cheek once, twice, three times as he smooched. Kiss, kiss, kiss. Julian purred and tilted his own head, swaying on his feet, glad to feel Garak respond with a returning sway.

Garak’s hands drifted down Julian’s neck, to his waist, and then slipped swift along to his hands, taking them again.

The kiss broke with a wet smush, Julian gasping for breath, Garak’s tongue running across his own top lip. They gazed at each other, the world humming around them until it no longer hummed – Julian heard the cheers now, the deafening roars of their captive audience.

Julian gave Garak a shivering, happy grin. They’d really just done that. They’d really just become... _something_.

Julian tore his eyes from Garak’s and glanced around, laughing in exhilaration as he saw a collection of brawls that had begun. It was too noisy to hear anything distinct; Quark was drowning amidst shouts and people throwing things at him and cheering. Julian couldn’t even tell if people were happy or angry.

“Hey! Hey!” Quark started kicking snacks and garbage back at people. “Show some respect, you—”

The bat on the balcony transformed into a thick armoured beast and thumped down onto the bar, shaking the room. It curled back its long, ridged snout and blared a _roar_ , and the bar fell silent and still. Julian just clung to Garak’s hand, watching in utter rapture.

Quark straightened his clothes and flicked a sandpea off his shoulder. “As I was saying,” he said at a normal volume, as the four-legged Security Officer began to patrol the bartop in a heavy strut, making Quark lift one leg at a time to let him pass. “Look, people, don’t get mad at _me_ that this thing was rigged from the start and none of you ever had a real shot at winning. Ask me who cooked this whole thing up!” He flailed towards the dabo table, and Julian glanced at Garak, whose expression remained impassive. “Garak just wanted an excuse to feel the doctor up and ask him out.”

Julian eyed his friend again. “Garak?” he asked, softly. “Is that true?”

Garak sighed. “It seems our Ferengi friend is rather getting ahead of me,” he murmured, as the Ferengi babbled on defensively to the masses. “I haven’t had the opportunity to ask you anything, yet.”

“Besides,” Quark said, batting away another projectile, “Real, delicious cuisine is still available in the holosuites for the low, _low_ price of four strips of latinum for yoU AND A SPECIAL FRIEND—” He’d started to shout to be heard over the crowd, but this time the chaos was barely subdued by Odo’s roars.

“I’d suggest,” Garak said, as people started turning their way instead of Quark’s, “you and I make ourselves scarce, doctor.”

“Lead the way,” Julian said cheerfully, taking hold of Garak’s hot hand and following as he began to push through the crowd.

Amongst jostles and shouts and offers of congratulations (some reluctant, some exuberant), Garak and Julian made it to the main entrance of Quark’s, and fell free along with a dwindling crowd, as the two of them weren’t the only ones eager to escape. The Promenade repopulated as they hurried away, hand-in-hand.

They didn’t get too far before a call came from behind— “Julian!”

Julian turned, and Garak stopped with him.

Miles O’Brien was on his way over, jaw set, a funny look in his eyes. He marched up to them, then immediately ceased looking so courageous, instead wilting. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Julian blinked. “Miles, what—”

“We’re all sorry.” Miles was joined by a smiling Jadzia, then Kira, then Keiko with Molly and Sisko, then, finally, Odo, now back in Humanoid form. “We took this too lightly, we thought—” Miles glanced behind him and realised he had backup, and regained some confidence. “We thought it was a stupid game, Julian, we heard you... Garak...” His eyes drifted to the Cardassian tailor, and he gulped. “We all heard different things, but we all heard you agreed to this from the start.”

Sisko said, “I heard from Jake that this was a charity venture, and you were raising funds for Cardassian orphans on Bajor.”

Hands behind his back, head down, Odo added, “I was informed by Rom that Sisko approved, and then, of course, once I asked Sisko, Sisko did approve.”

“Hey,” Kira raised her hands, “I just heard it was for fun. Wouldn’t put it past Julian to want every girl on the station following him around.”

Jadzia lay a hand on Kira’s shoulder, sharing a glance with her, then looking solemnly at Julian. “Wherever those rumours came from, Julian, we should’ve checked with you first. Even if it did break Quark’s rules.”

Julian was on the edge of stunned laughter, but looked to Garak. “Cardassian orphans?”

“I’m sorry to say, my dear doctor, that rumour was not of my making. I only had one goal in mind.” Garak hugged his arm around Julian’s waist, making Julian chirp a laugh, then bite his lip in a grin. “I suspect Quark slipped Nog a few half-truths which were then sifted through young Mr. Sisko’s most optimistic filter.” Garak nodded to Captain Sisko. “My apologies for any inconvenience caused, Captain.”

Sisko only looked at Julian. “Dr. Bashir, were you or were you not _manipulated_ into partaking in this phony ‘competition’ against your will?”

Julian opened his mouth. “Skilfully enticed... yes. Forced? Not at all.” He shrugged, offering a clumsy grin. “By the time I realised what was going on I really didn’t mind it, Captain. In fact, I—” He gave Garak a soft little glance, then cleared his throat and looked more sternly back at Sisko. “I was enthused by the prospect, sir.”

Sisko’s eyes flamed. “Enthused.”

“Yes sir.”

Miles had started to smile, chin dipping to his chest. “He means he was already head-over-heels in love, sir.”

Jadzia added, her voice sultry with wisdom, “ _And_ had just been offered permission to act on his feelings in a controlled situation. Which I do believe was Garak’s underlying intention.”

Julian blushed, but nobody seemed to notice.

“I see,” Sisko said.

Keiko took a small breath, “Miles?” she said sweetly, “maybe we should leave them to talk?”

She was speaking to everyone else too, and they all got the hint. So, with a collection of sly, understanding smiles aimed Julian’s way, all his friends turned and left. Except Miles.

Miles drew in an emboldening breath, and looked Garak in the eye. “Sorry to you too,” he said. “I know I haven’t been exactly... welcoming to you—”

“Quite all right, Mr. O’Brien,” Garak said politely, with a small bow. “No offence taken. I hope we’ll enjoy more amicable interactions in the forthcoming times. Now, if you would be so kind as to excuse us,” he took Julian’s arm, “Julian and I have some private matters to discuss.”

Miles gave a small smile. “Julian—” Julian met his eyes. “Listen, if this scaly new lizard boyfriend of yours messes you around and lies to you like this again, you’ll _tell_ him what I’ll do to him, won’t you.”

Julian chuckled. He leaned close, taking Miles’ arm. “I think you’re missing the point, Miles.” He grinned, easing back, going with Garak. “Turns out I really quite _like_ being messed around.”

He turned and hurried away with Garak, laughing, knowing Miles was left dumbfounded, yet vaguely reassured.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  
  
Once away from prying eyes, Garak and Julian walked more slowly, their forearms entwined, Julian moving in sweeping steps, his attention set on his silent companion.

Garak took him to the most private view of the wormhole, helping Julian up the few steps and standing with him, hands slipping together to hold on.

Julian watched Garak peer out at the stars.

“In case it needs repeating,” Garak said quietly, eyes low, “I was not lying... or pretending, when I kissed you that night.”

“I know.” Julian swung up to Garak’s chest, holding his cheek, smiling at him. “I know, I figured it out, don’t worry.”

Garak kissed him tenderly, without warning. It only lasted a few seconds, but Julian was left dizzy and bubbling with emotion once it was over.

They held each other’s eyes, faint smiles of delight on their lips.

“If you’d like to punch me, Julian,” Garak said, “I would welcome it now.” He screwed up his face, expecting an assault.

Julian just chuckled. “I’m not going to punch you.”

“I would not hold it against you, doctor. I’m certain I quite deserve it. I owe you your retribution.”

Julian held Garak’s jaw and kissed his hot grey cheek. “What you _owe_ ,” he said, “is a sizable donation to a _number_ of Cardassian orphans on Bajor.”

Garak hummed, smiling widely. “And they shall have it,” he promised. He took Julian’s hands to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “But I really would feel better if you punched me.”

Julian sighed, head back. “Elim, for goodness’ sake, I’m a doctor, not a—” He drew back a hand and clapped it _hard_ against Garak’s cheek. Garak stumbled back, clutching his flushing face, shocked. Then he grinned, and looked up at Julian with more adoration in his dazzling blue eyes than ever before. “Ohhh,” Julian purred, lips pursed, “you like being caught off-guard, do you?”

“More than I’d care to admit,” Garak said, straightening up and trying to look composed. He laughed to himself, then took Julian’s hand again, which still burned hot across the palm.

“Garak,” Julian said, head down, grinning through a sigh. “You went through all this trouble to ask me to dinner in the most unnecessarily over-dramatic way, didn’t you. If you’re going to actually do it, _please_ do.”

Garak hummed. “Hm, perhaps I’ve changed my mind.”

Julian quirked up an eyebrow. “Have you indeed.”

Garak opened his mouth to further the banter, but closed it, head tilted. “No.” He let go of a preparatory breath, then asked, his voice trembling with hope, “Doctor, would you do me the honour of joining me for dinner tomorrow night, at twenty-one-hundred hours? I happen to have secured a lengthy, well-catered reservation in a holosuite. We can go anywhere in time, space, or fantasy that you like, speak of whatever matters you wish, and indulge in whatever delights happen to take your fancy.”

“A date,” Julian clarified.

“With the most romantic of intentions,” Garak nodded, “if you would so have me, my dear.”

Julian’s grin spread. He leaned in, and gave Garak’s bruised cheek a chaste kiss. 

“Surprise me,” he whispered, breath to his ear.

He left Garak there, beside a backdrop of familiar stars.

Julian looked back once, and winked.

  


⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ♥ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

  


Garak waited. He sat at the table, hands together on the tablecloth, and counted his breaths. He dared not think.

He listened to the birdsong, sweet notes trilling and tumbling through the thick air in his glass-domed garden. All the little neon animals were perched in the rainforest branches or flew high against the orange sky: a blazing, everlasting sunset seen through the greenhouse lattice far above.

Somewhere beyond this concave Eden, the hum of a storm rumbled in.

The drone of the holosuite doors disturbed the ambience, and Garak stood up at once, napkin dropped to his feet. Julian stood at the entrance, hair blasted back by a waft of hot air.

“Julian,” Garak said, picking up his napkin on the side of his shoe, taking it in his hand and laying it on the table, then striding to meet his companion some feet from the door. Julian was dressed in the new shirt Garak had tailored for him, and it caught the orange light in an elegant relief, as did the shine in his eyes.

“Hello, Elim,” Julian said, kissing Garak’s cheek as Garak kissed his. “This place is marvellous, where are we?” He looked up in awe, a boyish joy in his expression as he saw a long-tailed warbler flit overhead, glowing yellow.

“We are in a place of my own imagining,” Garak said. “I hope you don’t mind the heat.”

“Oh, not at all, it’s rather comforting,” Julian said, pacing ahead of Garak, past the white-wire table and chairs, curious about what could be seen beyond the platform they stood on. He went to the edge of the gritty square, and peered down – only to gasp, seeing a gushing waterfall pouring out from under his feet. A flock of miniature parrots danced up on an airgust, twirling and flying into the dense, whispering trees ahead.

Garak took Julian’s arm so he didn’t feel like he might fall. “Would you care to dine with me?”

Julian glanced at him. “Oh, in a minute,” he pleaded, and got down to sit on the edge of the precipice, peering over, shoes dangling over a rainbow which arched through the mist.

  


  
“This is incredible,” Julian said. “The vapour, the lighting, the textures—” He picked a piece of gemstone gravel off his dented palm. “The thunder in the distance... The _smell_ — It’s orange blossom, isn’t it? Your artisanship goes _far_ beyond tailoring, Garak, you really are a wonder.”

Garak sat with him, ignoring the majesty around them for an even more sensational sight. “And you outshine any creation of mine like a candle beside a sun.”

Julian gave him a disdainful look. “I’m already hooked on you, Garak, you don’t need to bait me with compliments.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Garak smiled. “It’s merely a truth I’ve had no good opportunity to share before now.”

Julian let his shoulders rise up to his ears. “Oh. Well, in that case.” He smiled, flattered. “Thank you.” He leaned in and shut his eyes to kiss Garak’s jaw ridge. Garak was all but undone by the time he pulled back.

“Uhhmmm.” Garak hung his head, smiling at his knees.

Julian laughed. “Oh, look at you!” He touched Garak’s back. “You’re all flustered. Such a romantic under it all, aren’t you?”

Garak snorted. “Far from it, doctor.”

Julian leaned in again and rested his chin on Garak’s shoulder, gazing fondly at his ear. “I think it’s too late to convince me of that, Garak. Far too late.” He slipped a hand into Garak’s, and held on, fingers interlocked. Cheek on Garak’s shoulder.

Garak shuddered, swallowing twice.

Julian stroked his hand with a thumb.

“You know,” Julian said quietly, dark eyelashes fluttering just at the edge of Garak’s vision, “I can barely believe this is happening. You and me, I mean.”

Garak turned to look at him. “Does it feel uncomfortable?”

“No, no,” Julian said quickly. “Merely... different, I suppose.”

“Hardly a difference from my perspective, doctor,” Garak said, drawing in a deep, sweet-scented breath. “We’ll still have our lunches, and our long, engaging talks. You’ll still prod me for mysteries revealed. And I shall remain as inscrutable as ever.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s right at all,” Julian complained, bumping Garak’s shoe with his own boot. “From what I can tell you’re trying your darnedest to be as _scrutable_ as you possibly can be.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning life may go on as before, Elim, but you, you’re a different man now.”

Garak looked away, ruffled by that. “I’d hate to think so.”

Julian smiled, a little hop of amusement in his breath. He leaned to give Garak a kiss on the neck, then beamed at him when their eyes met.

“How about you?” Garak asked him. “Tell me you feel awakened, doctor. What assemblage of secrets have I pried from the depths of your tangled soul?”

Julian actually paused to think about it. The shadow of a bird passed across his sunset-glowing skin, and he glanced up, but it was already gone. “I think,” he said eventually, “if you’d excuse my inexorable frankness – this relationship is... Well, it’s what I’ve been... waiting for.” He peered at Garak, eyes skipping about, as if expecting a reaction.

When Garak only cocked his head, Julian explained, “You seek heat, Garak. Because you’re cold. You seek it in your physical environment, in food, in chemicals, in—” he gestured, “constructed formations.” Julian hung his head. “Me, I seek it in people.”

Garak cast his eyes to the fiery sky, feeling the first twinge of understanding.

“I burn through people,” Julian whispered. “I use them up like wax and wick, I can’t help it. I hate that part of me, but... it’s happened so many times I can’t ignore it. I get bored. I get bored and I move on. Even with Palis, I chose the furnace of two dozen Starfleet Medical cadets and ensigns over her single, perfect flame. I feel the first spark with someone new and I think there’s something there that’ll keep me alive, but it fades, it settles, it starts to jump and eventually... it goes out.” He looked plainly at Garak. “There’s very few friends in my life who’ve kept giving me what I crave. And you’re one.” He squeezed Garak’s hand. “What we have... it’s part of what’s kept me sustained for years, Elim. Years. The best years of my life. The happiest.”

He shut his eyes and gave Garak a kiss on the lips, pressing, frowning, holding his cheek.

He breathed as he sat back again, holding Garak’s caring gaze.

“There’s heat here between us,” Julian said. “And for the first time in my life, Elim, the longer I know you, it’s _growing_.”

Garak hummed. “Then I only fear what will come when I have no secrets to reveal to you, doctor. When the mystery is gone, what will come of our heat, then?”

Julian laughed, eyes shut. “You’re missing my point, you dolt.” He bumped Garak with a shoulder. “In the last month alone you’ve upended my life, and the lives of five hundred people who you believed _hate_ you. You did something _unbelievable_ , Garak: you turned yourself and me into... luminaries. Public figures. This competition of yours was more than just a distraction, or a focus – you made strangers empathise with us. For God’s sake, Garak, you made _Miles_ apologise to you. In the end most of them got mad at _Quark_ , not you. Because they like you, now. They like _us_. You released an idea into their midst and let them use it in our favour.”

A slow moment passed.

“Elim...” Julian took a breath, and let it go. “I’m not going anywhere. And do you know why? Because what we have is too _good_ for me to let go of. And because you would move the stars themselves if it brought me back to you.”

Garak just gazed back. “I would.”

Julian nodded. “You saw how I felt before I did. You saw my weakness for you before _anyone_ did. And you exploited it in the most captivating way you could. You won the heart of a city, do you realise that? What people saw in the pictures, Garak... That... that love? It was real.” He nodded, insisting, “It is _real_.”

Garak’s heart swelled. He cradled Julian’s cheek and turned his face for a long and sultry kiss, lips pushing, breaths uneven. Julian moaned ever so quietly, and Garak swallowed the sound down, feasting on its vibration.

They smiled, apart again, catching their breath. Garak understood what Julian meant about heat. He blazed, being looked at with that kind of passion. But underneath... there was a quiet, unshakable contentment, which Garak knew would linger for the rest of their days.

“Dine with me, my dear,” Garak said. “One summons, and our feast will arrive.”

Julian nodded, scrambling to his feet, then offering his hands to help Garak up from the edge of the waterfall.

“I took the liberty of ordering your favourite dishes for you,” Garak said with a recovering grunt. He took Julian to the empty table and pulled out a chair for him to sit. “I have every assurance that it will be as delicious and nutritious as it is artfully prepared.”

Julian’s bright eyes followed Garak as he took his own seat. “And what will we talk about while we eat? A Cardassian play? An Earth novel? I find the conversation is as much a treat as the food.”

“Oh, so do I,” Garak agreed heartily. “No doubt we will find something delicious to spar over.” He was about to call for Quark, or Rom, or whoever was to bring their food, but paused, contemplative.

“What?” Julian asked.

Garak hummed. Then he decided to speak. “Like many things, doctor,” he said, head to one side, gaze set low, “even when a truth is hidden under innumerable lies or falsehoods or misdirections, even those we carry within ourselves... sometimes all it takes is one person to see past it all. And there he uncovers a truth neither of us had known for ourselves.”

“One person,” Julian grinned. “Or five hundred and thirty-seven.”

“Ah.” Garak held up a finger, lighthearted. “In such cases we must realise that, on occasion, what is shown outwardly is no lie at all, but a truth reflected outward from the very core of a person.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Julian leaned forward, “sometimes, what appears to be a romance... is in fact _exactly_ what it looks like.”

“Quite so.” Garak took a breath, and freed it slowly, reaching for Julian’s hands. Julian gave him his fingers, and smiled with mirth as they held on, palm-to-palm across the table.

“My dear friend,” Garak said, “I have never been more glad for my closest secret to be found out.”

Julian lifted Garak’s hands to his lips, and kissed his knuckles, as Garak had done for him. “Never been so glad myself,” Julian smiled.

Elim Garak looked ahead and saw creation’s most exquisite specimen: a deeply complex, yet ultimately simple man; content, and in love.

Julian Bashir gazed back with a heated look and an untamable smile, for he looked at Garak and saw exactly the same.

**{ the end }**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☆ [reblog art](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/189382950275/exactly-what-it-looks-like-garakbashir-24k-m)  
> ☆ [reblog opening lines](https://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/189381964430/exactly-what-it-looks-like)
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed this!! If you did, you'd no doubt appreciate [**my other Garak/Bashir fics**](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=47360&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=almaasi), more of which are coming weekly, up to and beyond the end of 2019. c;  
> Elmie x


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